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ORtRAl1  1)   BYHI3   HOLINtSS  FROM   MIS  OWN 

M"WEBSTCH  EXPRfSSLY  BDdTHIS  BOOK 


FROM  AN  AUTHENTIC  MEMOIR 


FURNISHED  BY  HIS  ORDER 


WRITTEN     WITH     THE     ENCOURAGEMENT,     APPROBATION 
AND     BLESSING 


OF 

HIS  HOLINESS  THE  POPE 


BERNARD  O'REILLY,  D.D.,  LD,, 

(LAVAL.) 


NEW  YORK 

CHARLES  L.  WEBSTER  &  COMPANY 

1887 


ENGLAND — SAMPSON  Low,  MARSTON, 
SEARLE  &  RIVINGTON,  LONDON 

FRANCE — FIRMIN  DiDOTETCiK.,  PARIS 
GERMANY — J.  P.  BACHEM,  COLOGNE 


ITALY — SOCIETA     ANONIMA     L'UNIOXE 

TIPOGRAFICO  EDITRICE,  TURIN 
SPAIN — ESPASA  Y  COMP*,  BARCELONA 
HOLLAND — MAATSCHAPPIJ    DE  KATHO- 

LIEKE  ILLUSTRATIE,  'SRERTOGENBOSCH 


Copyright,  1886, 
BY   BERNARD   O'REILLY. 

(All  rights  reserved.) 


H.  J.    HEWITT,   PRINTER    AND   EI.ECTROTVPER, 
27  ROSE  ST.,  N.    V. 


TO  HIS  EMINENCE  JAMES  CARDINAL  GIBBONS, 
Archbishop  of  Baltimore. 

YOUR  EMINENCE  :  It  is  most  fitting  that  this  biography  of  LEO 
XIII.,  the  work  of  an  American  priest,  should  be  dedicated  to  you. 

You  have  shed  a  new  lustre  on  the  See  of  Baltimore,  first  filled,  a 
century  ago,  by  John  Carroll — an  ever  dear  and  honored  name  among 
Americans  — since  adorned  by  the  learning  of  a  Kenrick  and  the  elo- 
quence of  a  Spalding,  and  hallowed  by  the  apostolic  virtues  of  the  arch- 
bishops who  preceded  and  followed  them. 

Two  years  have  not  passed  since  the  Christian  world  beheld  you,  at 
the  head  of  eighty-six  prelates,  opening  the  Third  National  Council  of 
Baltimore,  the  most  important  ever  held  in  the  New  World.  We  all 
know  now  with  what  exceeding  care  the  Holy  Father  had  prepared 
and  disposed  all  things  for  this  great  assemblage.  He  would  have  the 
work  dpne  there  to  be  considered  in  a  special  manner  his  own.  In 
the  impossibility  of  presiding  in  person,  he  committed  to  you  the 
charge  of  representing  him  ;  he  followed  the  proceedings  of  that  au- 
gust body  with  absorbing  interest,  and  approved  of  their  acts  with 
often  expressed  satisfaction. 

In  raising  to  the  supreme  honors  of  the  Roman  Purple  the  Aposto- 
lic Delegate  who  had  so  admirably  presided  over  these  momentous  de- 
liberations, LEO  XIII.  has  fulfilled  the  wishes  and  prayers  of  the  Ame- 
rican Church  and  ratified  the  judgment  of  the  entire  American  peo- 
pie. 

That  Your  Eminence  may  be  spared  to  see  Religion  extend  her 
sway  while  our  Republic  advances  in  all  that  constitutes  Christian  civil- 
ization, and  that  the  teachings  and  examples  of  the  life  herein  sketched 
may  become  to  our  land  the  LUMEN  IN  CCELO  foretold  long  ago,  is 
the  prayer  of  « 

Your  devoted  servant, 

BERNARD   O'REILLY,    S.T.D. 

ROME,  June  3,  1886. 


BELOW  IS  THE  REDUCED  FAC-8IMILE  OF  A  LETTER  FROM 

HIS   EMINENCE  JAMES  CARDINAL  GIBBONS    ARCHBISHOP 

OF    BALTIMORE, 
ACCEPTING  THE  FOREQOINQ  DEDICATION. 


FRO}!    THE    AMERICAN     CARDINAL. 

BALTIMORE,  November  5,  1 886. 

REV.  DEAR  FATHER :  I  am  deeply  grateful  to  you  for  your  great 
kindness  in  dedicating  to  me  the  English  edition  of  your  LIFE  OF  LEO 
XIII.,  and  for  associating  my  name  with  the  distinguished  Cardinal 
Parocchi,  whom  I  have  had  the  honor  of  knowing  for  several  years,  and 
to  whom  you  dedicate  the  French  edition. 

I  shall  naturally  take  a  lively  interest  in  the  work,  not  only  on  ac- 
count of  my  relation  to  it,  but  still  more  on  account  of  the  august  char- 
acter of  the  subject,  who  is  to-day  a  spectacle  of  Admiration  to  the  world. 

I  am  happy  to  learn  that  the  Holy  Father  has  been  graciously 
pleased  to  bestow  his  approbation  and  blessing  on  the  work,  and  that 
you  have  been  furnished  with  authentic  and  valuable  documents  bear- 
ing upon  the  life  of  the  illustrious  Pontiff. 

Believe  me,  yours  very  sincerely  in  Christ, 

JAMES  CARDINAL  GIBBONS, 

Archbishcp  of  Baltimore, 
REV.  BERNARD  O'REILLY. 


BELOW  18  THE  FAC-8IMILE  OF  A  LETTER  FROM 

CARDINAL   LUCIDO   MARIA   PAROCCHI,   VICAR  OF   HIS 
HOLINESS   LEO  XIII. 


/? 


'  — 


'  eJ 


Translation  of  the  letter  on  the  opposite  page  from  Cardinal 
Parocchl,  Vicar  of  His  Holiness  Leo 


SIR:  The  Reverend  Doctor  O'Reilly  has  informed  me  of  your  de- 
sire to  publish  the  Life  of  OUR  HOLY  FATHER  LEO  XIII.,  which  he 
has  just  written  with  the  ENCOURAGEMENT,  the  APPROBATION,  and  the 
BLESSING  OF  His  Holiness,  from  AUTHENTIC  and  AUTHORIZED  DOCU- 
MENTS, with  the  concurrence  and  the  direction  of  persons  high  placed 
near  the  Sovereign  Pontiff. 

I  congratulate  you  thereupon  in  the  interest  of  faith  and  of  civil- 
ization, to  which  Leo  XIII.  ever  consecrates  his  genius  with  the 
devotion  of  a  great  Christian  and  a  great  Pope.  While  wishing  your 
undertaking,  deserving  as  it  is  of  the  greatest  success,  the  divine  bless- 
ing, I  have  the  honor  to  be, 

Your  very  devoted   servant, 

L.   M.  PAROCCHI, 
Cardinal  Vicar  of  His  Holiness. 

ROME,  April  27,  1886. 
MR.  CHARLES  L.  WEBSTER. 


LETTER    OF     COMMENDATION      FROM     HIS     EMINENCE      JOHN      CARDINAL 
SIMEONI,   PREFECT  OF  THE   PROPAGANDA. 


S.  CONGREGAZION'E  DI  PROPAGANDA, 

Segreteria, 

N.  152. 

Risposta  intorno  alia  Vita 
di  Leone  XIII. 

ROME,  January  21,   1887. 
REVEREND  SIR  : 

I  received  not  long  ago  your  two  letters.  I  am  much  pleased  to  learn 
that  the  editing  of  the  first  volume  of  your  Life  of  the  Holy  Father  is 
happily  approaching  its  completion.  I  congratulate  both  yourself  and  Mr. 
Webster  on  the  activity  and  energy  displayed  TO  MAKE  OF  THIS  WORK  A 
SPLENDID  ONK,  in  every  way  worthy  of  the  subject,  and  in  spite  of  the 
opposition  encountered  and  of  more  than  one  serious  difficulty  met  with, 
and  successfully  overcome.  I  entertain  a  firm  confidence,  and  I  pray  with 
all  my  heart  that  your  united  efforts  may  be  crowned  with  gratifying 
results. 

Meanwhile,  I  also  pray  our  Lord  to  bestow  on  you  every  blessing. 

Yours  affectionately, 

JOHN  CARDINAL  SIMEON!,  Prefect. 

+•  D.,  ARCHBISHOP  OF  TYRE,  Secretary 
DR.  BERNARD  O'REILLY. 


FROM  THK  ARCHBISHOP  OF  NEAV  YORK. 

452  MADISON  AVENUE, 
NEW  YORK. 


NOVEMBER  29,  1886. 


MR.  CHARLES  L.  WEBSTER: 


DEAR  SIR :  From  your  favor,  of  recent  date,  I  am 
glad  to  learn  that  THE  LIFE  OF  POPE  LEO  XIII.,  written 
by  the  Rev.  Dr.  O'Reilly,  is  now  completed,  and  will  very 
soon  be  given  to  the  public,  in  the  Jubilee  Year  of  the 
Sovereign  Pontiff.  From  very  many  points  of  view  the 
luminous  career  of  Pope  Leo  XIII.  is  full  of  interest.  In 
your  publication  this  interest  is  enhanced,  first,  by  tile  fact 
that  the  narrative  is  drawn  from  authentic  sources,  and 
next  that  it  is  presented  in  the  graceful  and  polished  style 
already  so  favorably  known  to  the  large  circle  of  Dr. 
O'Reilly's  readers. 

I  congratulate  you,  therefore,  on  the  happy  thought 
of  this  important  contribution  to  the  Holy  Father's  Golden 
Jubilee,  and  I  trust  that  your  success  will  be  commensurate 
with  your  enterprise  and  your  labors  in  offering  to  us  all 
a  rare  gem  in  a  handsome  setting. 

I  am,  my  dear  sir, 

Very  respectfully  yours, 

M.  A.  CORRIGAN, 

Archbishop  of  New  York, 


THE  AUTHOR'S  PREFACE. 


I 
THE    life   of    Leo    XIII.    has    been   devoted,    next   to   the 

divine  interests  of  souls,  to  the  culture  and  advancement  of 
letters  and  science.  What  he  effected  by  his  generous  patron- 
age and  bright  example  in  Perugia,  and  wherever  he  could 
exercise  influence,  the  following  chapters  will  fully  relate. 
What  he  has  effected  in  Rome  and  throughout  the  Catholic 
world  during  his  Pontificate  we  shall  also  record  there. 

Leo  XIII.  stands  forth  even  now  as  one  of  the  most 
cultivated  scholars  of  the  present  or  of  any  past  century. 
His  Encyclical  Letters,  apart  from  their  opportuneness,  their 
doctrinal  authority,  and  their  wonderful  grasp  of  the  moral 
needs  and  dangers  of  Christian  society,  are  acknowledged 
to  be  masterpieces  of  literary  composition,  models  of  the 
purest  and  most  exquisite  Latinity. 

But  superior  to  all  these  qualities  of  intellectual  culture 
is  the  man's  own  stainless  character,  a  saintly  life  lending 
tenfold  authority  to  his  exalted  station,  and  to  the  recog- 
nized abilities  of  the  ruler  and  the  statesman. 

The  work  which  is  here  laid  before  the  public  is  one 
that  ought  to  commend  itself  to  every  man  and  woman  in 
both  hemispheres. 

Even  those  who  most  differ  from  Leo  XIII.  and  the 
Church  of  which  he  is  the  head,  are  fain  to  acknowledge 
that  no  other  teacher  in  modern  centuries  has  given  utter- 


j^  THE  AUTHOR'S  PREFACE. 

unce  to  such  pregnant,  needful,  and  far-reaching  words  of 
inspired  wisdom. 

If  Christian  society,  and  with  it  Christian  civilization,  are 
to  subsist  and  endure,  it  must  be — all  acknowledge  it — on 
the  basis  laid  down  by  the  Pontiff  in  his  wonderful  Ency- 
clical Immortale  Dei. 

But  all  Christian  men  and  women,  to  whom,  in  an  age 
running  so  fast  into  the  reckless  extravagance  and  furi- 
ous appetite  for  luxury  and  sensual  enjoyment  of  the  Im- 
perial R^man  world,  the  return  to  the  Gospel  ideals  and 
practices  is  a  cherished  dream,  must  hail  the  law  of  Chris- 
tian living  laid  down  by  Leo  XIII.  as  a  raising  anew  on 
high  of  the  banner  of  Christ. 

To  scholars  of  every  land,  no  matter  what  department 
of  learning  they  cultivate,  the  name  of  Leo  XIII.  must  ever 
be  an  honored,  if  not  a  cherished,  name. 

It  is  not  so  much  that  he  has  himself  been  all  his  life 
an  unwearied  student  and  an  admired  publicist,  as  that, 
both  before  and  after  his  elevation  to  the  Pontificate,  he 
has  been  the  consistent  advocate  and  generous  promoter  of 
education  in  its  truest  and  noblest  sense,  of  a  thorough 
education  for  the  people  as  well  as  for  the  leading  classes. 

This  is  clearly  shown  by  what  he  attempted  and  achiev- 
ed in  Perugia ;  by  what  he  has  strenuously  endeavored  to 
accomplish  in  Rome  in  the  face  of  the  most  adverse  cir- 
cumstances ;  and  by  the  encouragement  given  and  the  sacri- 
fices made  by  him,  throughout  Italy  and  the  entire  Christian 
world,  to  found  great  educational  centres  worthy  of  the  age 
and  its  requirements. 

Nor  has  the  world-wide  fame  of  Leo  XIII.  as  a  scholar 
failed  to  help  him  less  wonderfully  than  his  diplomatic  skill 
toward  winning  the  confidence  of  governments  and  peoples. 
It  is  his  reputation  for  superhuman  prudence,  for  modera- 
tion, and  for  the  most  varied  learning  that  has  enabled  him 


THE  AUTHOR'S  PREFACE.  15 

to  restore  friendly  relations  between  the  Holy  See  and  the 
most  hostile  non-Catholic  Powers ;  that  has  helped  him  to 
prevent  an  open  rupture  with  more  than  one  cabinet  ;  that 
has  caused  him  to  be  chosen  as  Arbitrator  between  Ger- 
many and  Spain  ;  and  that  has  gained  him  the  happiness  of 
concluding  with  Portugal  a  Concordat  healing  the  inveterate 
and  complicated  grievances  arising  out  of  the  Portuguese  pro- 
tectorate over  the  East-Indian  churches. 

Enlightened  public  opinion,  founded  on  the  exquisite  tact 
shown  by  the  Pontiff  in  dealing  with  ecclesiastical  matters  in 
Great  Britain,  demands  even  now  that  British  statesmen  shall 
treat  the  Holy  See  with  the  same  deference  and  respect  shown 
by  those  of  Berlin.  There  are  mighty  questions  threatening 
the  internal  peace  of  the  Three  Kingdoms,  which  the  far-see- 
ing wisdom  of  the  Head  of  Christendom  and  the  inviolable 
sense  of  justice  of  the  common  Parent  of  Christians  can  alone 
solve  satisfactorily  and  once  for  all. 

In  this  connection  we  cannot  regard  as  without  a  provi- 
dential purpose  the  fact  that  Leo  XIII.  is  the  only  Pope  who, 
since  the  reign  of  Henry  VIII.,  has  set  foot  on  the  shores  of 
England,  and  studied  there  the  great  social,  political,  and  re- 
ligious problems,  on  the  solution  of  which  depends  the  future 
of  civilization. 

BERNARD  O'REILLY. 

ROME,  June  7,   1886. 

NOTE. — The  AUTHENTIC  MANUSCRIPT  MEMOIR,  placed  in  our  hands  by 
THE  VATICAN  to  serve  us  as  a  guide  in  our  narrative,  is  designated  as  MS. 
in  our  quotations  throughout  this  volume. 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS. 


PART    FIRST. 
CHAPTER  I. 

INTRODUCTORY. 

Lumen  in  Calo :  "The  Light  in  the  Heavens  "—What  the  reader        PAGE 
will  find  in  this  Life 33~3& 

CHAPTER  II. 

Carpineto,  the  Birth-place  of  Leo  XIII.— The  mountain-town  ; 
history  and  description — The  home  of  the  Pecci  ;  parents  and 
children — Who  the  Pecci  were — Birth  of  Joachim  Vincent 
Pecci,  now  Leo  XIII. — His  Mother  :  her  virtues  ;  a  model 
wife,  mother,  and  Christian 37~45 

CHAPTER  III. 

Social  and  religious  condition  of  Italy  when  Vincent  Pecci  was  a 
child — Early  education  under  the  Jesuits  at  Viterbo  and  in 
Rome — Uncommon  promise  of  Joachim  Vincent  Pecci — His 
early  taste  for  Latin  literature  and  proficiency  in  the  language 
— The  Countess  Pecci's  devotion  to  St.  Francis  of  Assisi 
shared  by  her  children — The  Third  Order  of  St.  Francis — Va- 
cations at  Carpineto — Sickness  and  death  of  Countess  Pecci  .  46-62 

CHAPTER  IV. 

Leo  XII.  succeeds  Pius  VII. — He  reorganizes  the  great  schools  in 
Rome — Vincent  Pecci  at  the  "  Roman  College,"  or  Gregorian 
University — Success  at  the  end  of  his  under-graduate  course 
—  He  studies  philosophy  and  the  sciences — A  great  disap- 
pointment— Characterand  conduct  of  the  young  man  of  twenty 
— The  Jubilee  of  1825 — Leo  XII.  walking  barefooted  and  in 
penitential  weeds  through  the  streets  of  Rome — Pious  enthu- 
siasm of  the  youth  of  the  schools — Again  on  the  hills  at  Car- 
pineto . .  63-74 

16 


CONTENTS.  1 7 

CHAPTER  V. 

DRAWN  TO  THE  SERVICE  OF  GOD. 

Among  the  divinity  students  of  the  Roman  College — Rising  above  PAGE 
his  fellows — How  the  great  Jesuit  school  fostered  a  noble  in- 
tellectual ambition — In  the  Academy  or  College  of  Nobles — 
Aiming  higher  and  higher  still— The  University  of  SAPIENZA — 
The  holy  friendships  formed  by  Joachim  Pecci — Cardinals  Sala 
and  Pacca  prize  him — Initiated  in  the  science  of  administra- 
tion— Pecci  ably  assists  Cardinal  Sala  during  the  cholera — 
HOLY  ORDERS:  sub-deaconshipanddeaconship — The  beautiful 
church  in  which  Cardinal  Odescalchi  ordained  Joachim  Pecci 
— The  saintly  memories  which  cluster  around  the  tomb  of  St. 
Stanislas  Kostka — The  monument  of  Charles  Emmanuel  IV., 
King  of  Sardinia  and  Piedmont,  who  died  an  humble  lay- 
brother  here — Joachim  Pecci  ordained  a  priest,  Dec.  31,  1837 
APPENDIX  A  and  B  :  The  University  of  Sapienza 75-86 


PART    SECOND. 

ADMINISTRA  TIVE  AND  DIPLOMA  TIC  CAREER. 

CHAPTER  VI. 

Delegate  or  Governor  of  Benevento  at  twenty-eight — Peculiar  dif- 
ficulties in  his  way — Dangerous  illness — The  people  praying 
for  his  recovery — Recovery  ;  energetic  administration — How 
Monsignor  Pecci  dealt  with  smugglers  and  brigands — How  he 
treated  guilty  nobles — The  young  Governor  a  true  statesman — 
How  he  develops  the  resources  of  the  province — His  recall ; 
death  of  his  Father APPENDIX  C  :  The  College  of  Car- 
dinals   89-99 

CHAPTER  VII. 

Monsignor  Pecci  appointed  Delegate  or  Governor  of  Umbria — 
First  acquaintance  with  PERUGIA — The  cause  of  unrest  in  the 
Papal  States— What  Mazzini  and  Young  Italy  wanted — Mon- 
signor Pecci's  practical  mind — Reception  of  Gregory  XVI.  in 
Umbria — His  extreme  satisfaction  with  Mgr.  Pecci — Reforms 
effected  in  the  province  by  the  Delegate — Not  a  single  criminal 
in  the  prisons  of  Perugia — Recalled  to  Rome 100-107 


1 8  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER  VIII. 

NUNCIATURE  IN   BELGIUM. 

Monsignor  Pecci  appointed  Nuncio  to  Belgium — Consecraied  p\c.n 
Archbishop  of  Damietta — Constitutional  Government  in  Bel- 
gium— The  country  a  fair  battle-ground  between  religion  and 
irreligion — Birth  of  the  Belgian  Constitution — The  King— The 
school  question  in  Belgium — Its  extreme  importance  in  that 
country — Impression  made  by  Archbishop  Pecci  at  the  Court 
of  Brussels — A  saintly  Queen  and  h~r  influence — The  unde- 
nominational University  of  Brussels — The  Catholic  College 
of  St.  Michael — Lively  interest  taken  by  the  Nuncio  in  this 
institution — The  Belgian  Episcopate  revive  the  UNIVERSITY  OF 
LOUVAIN — Monsignor  Pecci  in  Louvain — Difficult  position  of 
the  Nuncio  between  the  political  parties— His  qualities  and 
personal  influence  as  remembered  by  Belgians — He  interferes 
between  Catholics  themselves — He  advises  the  founding  in 
Rome  of  the  Belgian  College — The  people  of  Perugia  ask  the 
Pope  to  give  them  for  bishop  Monsignor  Pecci 108-124 

CHAPTER  IX. 

STUDYING   LONDON,    PARIS,    AND    ROME. 

Universal  regret  in  Belgium  at  Monsignor  Pecci's  recall — Joachim 
Pecci  in  LONDON — Knowledge  obtained  about  the  Three  King- 
doms— Joachim  Pecci  in  PARIS— Court  and  throne  on  a  vol- 
cano— Joachim  Pecci  in  ROME — The  Pope  sick  to  death — 
His  true  character  and  services— First  acquaintance  with  Pius 
IX. — What  the  Archbishop-Bishop  of  Perugia  saw  in  Rome 
in  the  first  month  of  Pius  IX. 's  reign — The  true  story  about 
Monsignor  Pecci's  appointment  to  the  See  of  Perugia — He 
visits  Assisi  before  entering  Perugia — How  his  people  received 
him — Why  he  entered  Perugia  on  the  Feast  of  St.  Ann  :  the 
sweet  memory  of  his  Mother — The  Perugians,  and  the  revolu- 
tionary passions  at  work  among  them — Forecast 125-138 


PART    THIRD. 

JOACHIM  PECCrs  GLORIOUS  EPISCOPATE  IN  PERUGIA. 

CHAPTER  X. 

PREPARING   FOR   THF.   BATTLE 

EDUCATION  the  first  care  of  the  Bishop  of  Perugia — He  takes  for 
his  model  in  this  St.  Charles  Borromeo — The  true  need  of  the 
Italian  populations  in  1846.  I.  ;->\  OF  THE  CI.F.RGY  : 

i.  What  the  MEMOIR  says  about  his  educational  labors — The 


CONTENTS.  I  g 

Diocesan  Seminary  "  the  apple  of  his  eye  " — His  generous  and  PACE 
intelligent  expenditure — His  attention  to  perfect  order  and  dis- 
cipline— Strong  and  careful  culture — He  calls  attention  to  the 
scientific  method  of  St.  Thomas  Aquinas  — What  his  method 
really  is — ''Academy  of  St.  Thomas  Aquinas  "...  .2.  La- 
boring to  raise  the  level  of  spititual  as  well  as  that  of  intellec- 
tual  culture — How  such  husbandry  was  rewarded — Testimony 
from  the  MEMOIR 141-155 

CHAPTER  XI. 

PREPARING  FOR  THE  BATTLE. 

II.  The  Second  Education  of  the  Clergy — SANCTITY  and   SCIENCE: 
I.   Walking  with  them  in   the  paths  of  holiness — He  makes 
them  his  joint  fellow-laborers  in  all  pastoral  charities — Tes- 
timony from  the  MEMOIR — His  own   private  life  a  MIRROR — 
RULES  OF  CONDUCT  for  his  priests — "  An  exemplary  and  labo- 
rious life" 2.  They  must  be  LEARNED;  they  are  the  ex- 
pounders and  defenders  of  Revealed  Truth 156-165 

CHAPTER  XII. 

IN   THE   BATTLE. 

III.  The  Bishop  in  the  conflict  defends  and  protects  his  priests — 
The  Revolution  resolves  to  extinguish  the  Priesthood — Car- 
dinal   Pecci's  defensive  measures — Pastoral    Letter — Society 
for  redeeming  clerical  students  from  enforced  military  service 
— His    society   eminently    successful — Needs   of    the    clergy, 
beggared  by  the  "  sequestration  "  and  "  incameration  "  of  ec- 
clesiastical  property — A   private    relief    fund  established   at 
the    Cardinal's    instance — The    Royal    exequatur    forbidding 
bishop  or  priest    from  being  installed    in    office    or   drawing 
their  revenues  without  Government  license — The  military  law 
compelling  priests  to  serve  in  the  ranks  of  the  army — Magni- 
ficent  REMONSTRANCE  drawn  up  by  Cardinal  Pecri  and  ad- 
dressed to  the  King — A  courageous  arraignment  of  the  Revo- 
lution, of  the  King   himself,  and  his  Ministers — They  simply 
want  to  extinguish  religion  and  morality  in  Italy,  and  to  make 

it  impossible  to  send  missionaries  abroad 166-175 

CHAPTER    XIII. 

JOACHIM   PECCI   THE   GREAT   BENEFACTOR   OF   PERUGIA. 

A  pregnant  chapter — A  bird's-eye  view  of  the  entire  field  of  the 
Bishop's  activity — Famine  and  earthquakes  desolating  Um- 
bria — What  the  son  of  Anna  Pecci  did  and  made  others  do — 


2O  CONTENTS. 

The  devoted  Bishop  and  Good  Shepherd  in  1860,  when  the  city        PAGE 

\vas   stormed   by  the  Piedmontese — Death-struggle   between 

the  Church  and  the  Revolution — Cardinal   Pecci  confronts  the 

enemies  of  religion  as  the  leader  of  his  brother-bishops  and 

the  Champion  of  Religion — What  the  MEMOIR  says — Female 

education  not  neglected  in  the  struggle — Defending  the  Ladies 

of  the  Sacred  Heart — Institutions  founded,  or  improved,  for 

every  want  of  soul  or  body,  for  all  classes,  sexes,  and  ages — 

All-embracing  charity — Cardinal  Pecci's  Pastoral  Visitations 

of  his  diocese — His  zeal  in  building  and  restoring  churches  ; 

his  great  generosity 176-194 

CHAPTER  XIV. 

IN  THE  BATTLE. 

Cardinal  Pecci,  as  Bishop  of  Perugia,  undertakes  to  thoroughly 
enlighten  his  people  on  the  errors  of  the  day — Pastoral  Letter 
on  the  abuses  of  magnetism. . .  .1.  His  Pastoral  on  the  Tem- 
poral Dominion  of  the  Holy  See — An  admirable  exposition  of 
the  entire  Roman  Question — Prophetic  picture  of  what  was  to 
be  the  position  in  Rome  of  Pius  IX.  and  Leo  XIII. — Cardinal 
Pecci  reveals  the  secret  designs  of  the  Revolutionary  conspi- 
rators— A  strong  appeal  to  the  Perugians— The  traditional 
devotion  to  the  Popes  of  the  old  mediaeval  city. . .  .II.  Fidel- 
ity to  Pius  IX.  in  the  face  of  the  triumphant  Revolution — 
Joachim  Pecci  the  well-inspired  spokesman  of  his  brethren 
— He  indignantly  denounces  the  frauds  of  the  Piedmontese, 
and  spurns,  in  their  name,  the  bribes  offered  to  bishops  and 
priests 195-214 

CHAPTER  XV. 

THE  FIERCE  BATTLE  WITH   ANTI-CHRIST. 

I.  Cardinal  Pecci  defends  the  liberty  of  the  Church — England  and 
France  in  1859-61  siding  with  the  powers  of  evil — Terrible 
propaganda  of  impiety  and  immorality  all  through  Central 
Italy  in  those  years — Eloquent  Remonstrance  of  the  Arch- 
bishop and  Bishops  of  the  Marches — Joint  PROTEST  of  the  Arch- 
bishops and  Bishops  of  Umbria,  drawn  up  by  Cardinal  Pecci 
— The  noble  appeal  for  the  rights  of  Christian  truth  and 
freedom. .  ..II.  Cardinal  Pecci's  defence  of  the  Christian  Fam- 
ily— Christian  matrimony  set  aside  by  the  Piedmontese  in- 
vaders— Memorable  DECLARATION  drawn  up  by  the  Cardinal 
in  the  name  of  his  Brother-Bishops — His  noble  letter  to  the 
King  on  the  same  subject — Consequences  of  this  anti-Chris- 
tian law — A  golden  lesson  for  American  statesmen  and 


CONTEXTS.  2 1 

churchmen  on  divorce  laws III.  Cardinal  Ptcci  emlig htat-        PAGE 

imgtiu  CkrixtiM  luma  ffkispeepie — His  beautiful  Pastoral  on 
Current  Errors  and  Christian  Life — Words  deserting  of  being 
in  letters  of  gold — "  Scientific  instruction  without 
arhing  will  give  jou  clever  young  men  and 
t ;  religious  education  will  give  you  k*nctt  and  virtuous 
eifhrrrr™  


CHAPTER    XVI. 

Tie  Battle  far  Ids  Clergy  grtrwing  fiercer — The  worst  enemies  and 
persecutors  of  the  clergy  were  apostate  priests — Terrible  in- 
dictment against  them  of  Cardinal  Newman — Numbers  of 
these  returning  into  the  States  of  the  Church  with  the  Pied- 
"•"•t***  armies — They  inspired  and  encouraged  the  worst 
laws  against  the  Church — Abolition  of  the  courts  which  had 
condemned  them — Education,  charity,  and  beneficence  secu- 
larized— The  Religious  Orders  abolished  by  the  Royal  Commis- 
sary, Marquis  Pepoli — Protest  of  Cardinal  Pecci — Sacrileges 
committed  in  Perugia — The  indignant  Letter  to  the  King  in 
-.--•  :  -':  •'-.--  ?.t".  r. .  _^  Orders — Anothei  indignant  remon- 
strance to  the  King  on  the  suppression  of  the  Monastery  of 
Monte  Corona — The  commissary  has  done  everything  to  thwart 
die  King's  merciful  intentions — Incredible  duplicity  and  cruel- 
ty— All  these  steps  availed  nothing — Cardinal  Pecci  sued  be- 
fore t&e  courts  and  acquitted — Multitudes  of  Religious  of  both 
sexes  dispossessed  of  even-thing  and  reduced  to  extreme 
want — His  efforts  to  relieve  them — He  once  more  resists  the 
exercise  of  the  Royal  exequatur — His  noble  protest  against  this 
enslaving  of  the  Church — The  new  legislation  subjects  every 
function  and  act  of  the  bishop  and  priest  to  the  inspection  of 
Stale  functionaries — A  terrible  arraignment  in  his  Collective 
Letter  to  the  King — All  the  Government  persecutions  and  pun- 
ishments are  for  the  good  and  faithful  priests  :  all  the  favors 
and  rewards  for  the  fractious  and  the  wrong-doer 240-259 

CHAPTER  XVTL 

A  pause  in  the  conflict ;  two  family  feasts — i.  Celebrating  Joachim 
Peccf  s  -deration  to  the  Cardinalate. . .  2.  Perugia  celebrates 
IfflS  Episcopal  Silver  Jubilee — Feasting  with  sad  hearts — Pro- 
:":-•:•:;•_::.  5 can ce  of  the  pnl  :  prayers  .  3.  Made  pi  •.  :- 
tor  of  the  Franciscan  Third  Order — A  spiritual  feast  at 
Assisi — The  most  effective  reform  for  the  whole  of  Christian 
society  er>erywhere — How  people  in  the  world  can  be  Christ- 
Ilk*— Joachim  Pecci  striving  to  restore  the  Divine  Ideal — The 
beamitifid  spirit  and  more  beautiful  life  of  Francis  of  Assisi. . .  260-276 


22  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER  XVIII. 

1877. 

I.  Cardinal  Pecci  at  the  Golden  Jubilee  of  Plus  IX. — How  the  PAGE 
Piedmontese  Government  attempted  to  mar  the  universal  joy 
—Cardinal  Pecci,  at  the  head  of  the  Italian  Episcopate,  ad- 
dressing Pius  IX. — Crux  de  Cruce  and  Lumen  in  Calu....2. 
Cardinal  de  Angelis  dies ;  Cardinal  Pecci  appointed  Car- 
dinal Camerlengo — The  shadow  of  the  coming  cross 3. 

The  light  still  shining  brightly  on  Perugia — Last  Pastoral 
Letters  on  the  "Church  and  Civilization" — The  first  mention 
in  his  writings  of  the  Kulturkampf — Death  of  Pius  IX. — Last 
words  to  the  Church  of  Perugia 277-292 


F>ART  FOURTH. 

THE  PONTIFICA  TE. 

CHAPTER  XIX. 

I.  The  Conclave  :  Would  the  Cardinals  be  allowed  to  elect  freely? 

— Cardinal  Pecci's  firm  but  prudent  counsels — Protest  of  the 
Sacred  College  against  the  title  of  King  of  Italy  assumed  by 
Umberto  I. — Precautions  for  the  secrecy  and  security  of  the 
Conclave — Opening  of  the  Conclave — First  Ballot :  23  votes 
for  Cardinal  Pecci  ;  his  fears ;  the  shadow  of  the  cross 
—  Second  Ballot :  38  votes  for  Cardinal  Pecci  ;  intolerable 
dread  ;  the  shadow  deepens  ;  he  wants  to  protest,  but  is  pre- 
vented— Third  Ballot :  44  votes  out  of  61  for  Cardinal  Joachim 
Pecci — Bowing  to  the  Divine  Will — "  By  what  name  do  you 
wish  to  be  called  ?" — "  By  the  name  of  LEO  XIII." — Joy  in 
Rome — Astonishment  and  joy  in  Perugia 295-315 

CHAPTER  XX. 

II.  Lumen  in  Casio — Congratulations  from  all  the  Catholic  Powers — 

The  first  Papal  blessing  given  within  the  Basilica  of  St.  Peter — 
The  second  PRISONER  OF  THE  VATICAN — Crowned  in  the  privacy 
of  the  Vatican — The  greeting  of  Catholic  Spain  to  Leo  XIII. 
— Illumination  in  Rome — The  police  allow  the  roughs  to 
smash  all  lighted  windows — The  first  acts  of  Leo  XIII.  : 
Restoration  of  the  Scotch  Hierarchy;  Encouraging  young  Arti- 
san Societies  in  Paris  ;  Encouraging  Belgian  noblemen  to  do 
the  same  for  workingmen — The  noble  Consistorial  Allocution 
of  March  28 — First  Encyclical  Letter,  Inscrntalnli,  of  April  21 — 
The  Italians  expected  a  "liberal  policy";  disappointed — 


CONTENTS.  23 

The  OXE  GREAT  PROMINENT  IDEA  in  this  and  in  all  Leo  XIII. 's  PAGB 
teachings  is  the  absolute  necessity  of  Christianity,  that  is,  of 
THE  CHURCH,  to  humnn  society — Analysis  of  this  Encyclical — 
Contrast  between  society  in  the  ages  when  Christianity  was 
reverenced  and  made  the  law  of  life,  and  the  irreligious  society 
of  the  present  age — True  and  false  civilization— What  the 
Popes  have  done  for  civilization  and  humanity  in  the  past — 
Special  benefits  conferred  by  them  on  Italy — He  demands  the 
restoration  of  the  liberty  of  the  Holy  See — Impressive  appeal 
to  sovereigns,  rulers,  statesmen  not  to  reject  or  neglect  the 
aid  to  be  found  in  the  Church  and  Religion  of  Christ — Educa- 
tion— The  Family — He  urges  ajl  bishops  to  disseminate  a 
sound  knowledge  of  Christian  Doctrine — Necessity  of  a  sound 
philosophy  for  all  the  sciences,  for  sacred  science  in  particular 
— Domestic  educati  n  and  the  Christian  family — Great  utility 

of  confraternities   or   pious  guilds APPENDIX  D:    The 

right  of  veto  in  Papal  elections 316-342 

CHAPTER  XXL 

ANTI-CHRIST  solemnly  defies  Leo  XIII.  in  Rome — Apotheosis  of  Vol- 
taire— Cardinal  Franchi  Secretary  of  State — He  makes  a  jour- 
ney to  Ireland — Dies,  and  is  replaced  by  Cardinal  Nina — Im- 
portant letter  of  the  Pope  to  the  latter,  sketching  out  the  policy 
he  has  pursued  and  intends  for  the  future  to  follow — Appeal 
to  sovereigns  and  rulers  to  accept  the  aid  of  the  Church — In- 
tolerable tyranny  of  the  Italian  Government — Letters  of  the 
Pope  to  the  Emperor  of  Russia  and  the  President  of  the  Swiss 
Confederacy — The  centenary  of  the  death  of  Voltaire  celebrated 
in  Rome  by  all  the  anti-Christian  societies  of  France  and  Italy 
— A  carnival  of  impiety  and  blasphemy — It  was  a  solemn  de- 
claration of  war  to  the  death  against  the  Head  of  the  Christian 
Church — Acts  of  solemn  reparation  by  Romans  and  other 
European  Catholics — The  clerical  students  of  the  Diocese  of 
Rome  visit  the  Holy  Father — The  Roman  Government  forbids 
the  Catechism  to  be  taught  in  the  primary  schools — Atheism 
to  be  everywhere  an  inflexible  rule  in  public  instruction 343~36o 


CHAPTER  XXII. 
1878-1879. 

Difficulties  of  the  new  Pontificate — Pilgrims — Solicitude  for  France 
and  Germany — Encyclical  on  SOCIALISM —  The  first  JUBILKE — Leo 
XIII.'s  thorough  knowledge  of  the  situation  of  the  Papacy  in 
Rome  and  of  the  Church  throughout  Italy — Consolations  dur- 
ing the  summer  of  1878 — Pilgrims  from  German}- — Letter  to 


24  CONTEXTS. 

the  Corporation  of  CORK — Pilgrims  from  Spain — Their  cruel  PAGB 
detention  by  the  officials  at  Civita  Vecchia — Impolicy  of  an- 
noying or  insulting  pilgrims — Congress  or  meeting  of  Catho- 
lic journalists  in  Rome — Address  of  the  Holy  Father — Elo- 
quent Letter  to  the  Archbishop  of  Cologne — Encyclical  on 
SOCIALISM — Description  and  history  of  this  error — Difference 
between  France  and  Germany  with  regard  to  Socialism — 
Effects  of  the  Encyclical  in  the  latter  country — Lessons  for 
statesmen  in  all  lands — Light  breaking  in  the  East 361-379 

CHAPTER  XXIII. 
LEO  xni.  AND  THE  •EASTERN  PEOPLES. 

I.  Leo  XIII.  and  the  Slavonic  Races — Terrible  persecutions  against 
Catholics  in  Russia — Advances  made  by  the  Russian  Govern- 
ment in  June,  1877 — Cardinal  Simeon!  sends  for  the  Czar's 
perusal  an  official  statement  of  grievances— Returned  uncere- 
moniously without  explanation  or  excuse — The  Pope  dismisses 
the  Russian  Ambassador — Leo  XIII. 's  endeavor  to  conciliate 
— Letter  to  Alexander  II  — The  two  Archdukes,  Sergius  and 
Paul,  visit  Rome — Sudden  death  of  the  Emperor — Centenary 
of  the  Apostles  of  the  S'avs,  SS.  Cyril  and  Methodius,  in  1880 
— Encyclical  on  their  labors — Great  enthusiasm  among  the 
Slavs — A  numerous  pilgrimage — Creation  of  a  regular  Epis- 
copal Hierarchy  in  Bosnia  and  Herzegovina. . .  .2.  The  Greeks, 
and  the  Peoples  -who  ding  to  the  Greek  Liturgy — The  Greek 
National  College  of  St.  Athanasius  in  Rome,  founded  in 
1577  by  Gregory  XIII.,  enlarged  by  Leo  XIII.,  and  the 
course  of  studies  widened  and  improved. . .  .3.  Eastern  Peoples 
of  the  Ottoman  Empire — An  object  of  most  especial  solici- 
tude to  Leo  XIII.  from  the  beginning  of  his  reign — The 
Sublime  Porte  learns  to  prize  the  salutary  influence  of  the 
Church — The  Babylonian  Patriarch,  Mgr.  Abolionan,  officially 
confirmed  by  the  Sultan — Appeasement  of  the  bloody  feud  be- 
tween the  Nestorian  Jacobites  in  Syria  and  the  Catholics. . .  .4. 
End  of  the  Armenian  Schism — A  repetition  in  Turkey  of  the 
drama  of  the  "  Old-Catholic  Church"  in  Germany — "Infalli- 
bility" the  cloak  of  ambition  and  cause  of  schism — Singu- 
lar wisdom  of  Leo  XIII.'s  clemency  to  the  first  repentant 
sinner;  all  the  others  return  in  succession  to  the  fold — Mon- 
signor  Hassun,  the  Armenian  Patriarch,  the  champion  of  Faith 
among  the  Armenians — He  is  created  a  cardinal  and  made  to 
reside  in  Rome — Leo  XIII.  founds  in  Rome  a  national  college 
for  the  Armenians — The  Chaldeans  have  also  flourishing 

seminaries    at    Mossoul    under    the     Dominicans Note  : 

Leo  XIII.  intended  central  universities  in  Athens  and  Con- 
stantinople   380-397 


CONTENTS.  25 

CHAPTER  XXIV. 

LEO   XIII.    AND  THE   EASTERN   PEOPLES. 

II.  Persia,  China,  and  Japan — I.  The  students  of  the  Propaganda  PAGE 
and  the  Ottoman  Empire — The  Emperor  of  Persia  ;  his  real 
character — His  oldest  son,  Prince  Zel-el-Sultan,  most  favor- 
able to  the  Christians — The  third,  or  youngest  son,  Nalb 
Sultaneh,  equally  tolerant  and  liberal — The  Lazarists  the  effi- 
cient missionaries  in  the  Persian  Empire — Archbishop  Thomas, 
a  Lazarist,  and  Apostolic  Delegate,  reports  favorably  to  Rome 
— Leo  XIII.  sends  the  two  princes  the  Grand  Cross  of  Pius 
IX. — Solemn  presentation  of  the  insignia  to  the  princes. . .  .2. 
Letter  of  the  Pope  to  the  Emperor  of  China — Opening  of 
direct  diplomatic  intercourse  with  the  Court  of  Pekin...-3. 
Letter  of  Leo  XIII.  to  the  Emperor  of  Japan — Favorable 
dispositions  towards  the  Catholic  religion  in  Japan — Letter 
to  the  King  of  the  Shoa  Gallas — How  Christian  civilization 
can  be  promoted  by  commercial  enterprise 398-407 

CHAPTER  XXV. 

LEO   XIII.    AND   GREAT   BRITAIN. 

I.  Gratitude  of  the  Popes  for  the  liberty  enjoyed  by  Catholics  in  the 
English-speaking  world — The  old  anti-Papist  feeling  in  Eng- 
land in  1850  ;  a  brief  manifestation — Growth  and  prosperity 
of  the  Church  in  Great  Britain  from  1850  to  1878 — The  revival 
in  the  land  of  St.  Margaret — The  sweet  hope  of  a  revival  of 
true  charity  between  the  islands  with  the  return  of  the  true 
Faith — The  restoration  of  the  Hierarchy  in  Scotland  the  first 
official  act  recorded  of  Leo  XIII. 's  Pontificate — Beautiful  lan- 
guage addressed  to  Scotland — The  unfulfilled  hope  of  Pius 
IX.  now  an  accomplished  fact — Eloquent  appeal  to  Scotch 
Catholics — The  hills  of  Scotland  put  on  gladness — The  spirit 

of  St.  Margaret  and    St.  David    abroad 2.  The  Apostolic 

Constitution  Romanes  Pontifices — The  glorious  story  of  mis- 
sionary devotion  which  led  to  the  relative  positions  of  the  old 
Regular  Orders  and  the  restored  Hierarchy  of  England  and 
Scotland — Traditional  love  of  the  Holy  See  for  the  nation — 
The  national  character  — Happy  settlement  of  all  the  present 
difficulties 408-420 

CHAPTER  XXVI. 

LEO   XIII.    AND   IRELAND. 

Why  Leo  XIII.  desires  to  see  a  cordial  union  between  England 
and  Ireland — The  conditions  of  such  a  union — The  cause  of 


26  CONTENTS. 

chronic  famine  and  unrest — The  true  genesis  of  crime  in  Ire-  PAGE 
land — What  Leo  XIII.  would  have  seen  in  Ireland  in  the 
autumn  of  1879 — The  Land  League— To  stop  agrarian  vio- 
lence and  stifle  secret  associations  the  clergy  must  have  the 
confidence  and  control  of  the  people — The  National  Party — 
The  marvellous  power  of  ORGANIZATION — Letter  of  Leo  XIII. 
to  the  Irish  Hierarchy  in  January,  1883 — "  The  most  righteous 
cause  dishonored  by  iniquitous  means  " — Appeal  to  Irish- 
men's love  for  the  Catholic  name — Confidence  that  the  British 
Government  will  grant  satisfaction  to  the  just  claims  of  Irish- 
men— New  difficulties — Second  Letter  of  the  Pope — The  just 
cause  of  the  country  to  be  kept  apart  from  the  plots  of  secret 
conspirators — The  Propaganda  Circular — Death  of  Cardinal 
McCabe — The  Pope  confirms  the  election  of  Dr.  Walsh — 
What  Leo  XIII.  recommends  to  Irishmen 421-435 


CHAPTER  XXVII. 

1881. 

Funeral  of  Pius  IX. — Leo  XIII.  recounts  the  inhuman  outrages  of 
the  mob  who  assailed  the  funeral  cortege  of  Pius  IX. — Min- 
ister Mancini's  disingenuous  statements — Absolute  necessity 
of  the  Pope's  being  Sovereign  in  Rome 436-440 

CHAPTER  XXVIII. 

LEO   XIII.    AND  THE   UNITED   STATES. 

First  official  act  in  1884  to  convene  the  Third  National  Council  of 
Baltimore — The  Archbishops  summoned  to  Rome  in  the  No- 
vember preceding — The  coming  Council  the  most  important 
and  numerous  ever  held  in  the  New  World — Retrospect : 
What  the  United  States  were  when  Joachim  Pecci  was  born  ; 
the  twofold  fact  underlying  the  unparalleled  prosperity  of 
the  American  Republic:  i.  The  people  a  religious  people; 
2.  They  were  a  practical,  conservative  people — Their  institu- 
tions, hallowed  by  religion  at  their  birth  in  the  far  past,  the 
outgrowth  of  their  social  life — The  American  Revolution,  or  War 
of  Independence,  conservative,  not  revolutionary — The  same 
type  preserved  in  every  new  State  organized — The  French  Re- 
volution of  1789  essentially  destructive — Maryland  alone  con- 
tained originally  the  nucleus  of  a  Catholic  population — Its 
Catholic  sons  foremost  in  devotion  to  the  Union — Birth  of  the 
Catholic  Hierarchy — The  Irish  Catholic  element — The  Ger- 
mans—RELIGION  the  great  formative  force  in  the  United  States 


CONTENTS.  2  J 

— Meeting  in  November,  1884,  of  the  National  Council —  PAGE 
EIGHTY-THREE  prelates  telegraph  to  the  Holy  Father — Pro- 
ceedings of  the  Council — Courtesy  and  kindness  of  the  Bal- 
timoreans — The  Pastoral  Letter  of  the  Council ;  a  wonderful 
document — The  warm,  patriotic  spirit  of  the  Fathers  of  the 
Third  National  Council — Their  estimate  of  Leo  XIII. — EDU- 
CATION the  chief  care  of  the  Council  and  of  the  Pope — The 
Pope  and  the  National  Catholic  University  of  America — Ele- 
vation to  the  Cardinalate  of  the  Archbishops  of  Baltimore 
and  Quebec 441-459 


CHAPTER  XXIX. 

LEO  XIII.   AND   GERMANY. 

The  German  Difficulty  the  greatest  inherited  from  the  preceding 
Pontificate — History  of  the  Kultitrkampf,  or  "  Civilization 
Conflict  " — Admirable  organization  and  cohesion  of  the  Catho- 
lic Party  in  Germany — The  spirit  which  animates  their  yearly 
assemblages  or  congresses — The  "  Old-Catholic  Church  " — A 
cruel  policy  doomed  to  end  in  discomfiture — Results  of  the 
Kulturkampf — The  fruits  it  had  borne  in  October,  1878 — Prince 
Bismarck  tells  the  story  of  his  hopes  of  Leo  XIII.  and  of  his 
early  negotiations  with  him — He  enforces  in  Prussia  the  pre- 
scriptive and  persecuting  legislation  of  the  first  Stuarts  in  Eng- 
land and  Ireland — The  fear  of  "going  to  Canossa" — Law  of 
June  5,  1883 — Fearful  condition  of  Prussian  Catholics  at  that 
time — The  Polish  Question  a  disturbing  element — If  Bismarck 
could  come  to  think  about  Poland  as  Gladstone  does  about 
Ireland — End  of  the  Ktilturkampf 460-480 

CHAPTER  XXX. 

LEO  XIII.   AND  HIGHER   STUDIES. 

Anxiety  to  provide  truly  Catholic  primary  and  intermediate  schools 
as  the  nurseries  for  his  universities — Letters  to  Cardinals  Mo- 
naco la  Valletta  and  Parocchi — His  zeal  for  the  revival  of  CHRIS- 
TIAN PHILOSOPHY — His  purpose  of  enthroning  St.  Thoma? 
Aquinas  as  the  "  Angel  of  the  Schools  " — Leo  XIII.  and  TRUE 
SCIENCE — Reforming  all  education  on  Christian  principles — 
Encyclical  of  August  4,  1879,  on  Christian  Philosophy — His 
description  of  St.  Thomas  Aquinas  and  his  method — Enthu- 
siasm among  Catholic  scholars — Reforms  in  the  schools  of 
higher  studies  in  Rome — His  great  care  in  raising  the  stand- 
ard of  education  among  the  clergy  of  the  Diocese  of  Rome — 
His  letter  to  Cardinal  Parocchi — Outcome  of  this  letter 481-494 


28  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER  XXXI. 

LEO    XIII.   AND   FRANCE. 

The  self-destruction  progressing  in  France  a  unique  spectacle  in  PAGE 
history — The  task  before  Leo  XIII.  in  1878  of  saving  France 
from  the  suicidal  folly  of  French  irreligion — Accounting  for 
the  conflicting  good  and  evil  in  France — What  Joachim  Pecci 
beheld  there  in  1846. . .  .THE  GOOD  :  Wonderful  revival  of  re- 
ligion— The  overflowing  missionary  spirit — A  revival  of  the 
apostolic  fervor  which  evangelized  North  America — This 
chivalrous  religious  spirit  characteristic  of  ancient  as  of 
modern  Catholic  France. — THE  EVIL  :  Voltaire  implants  anti- 
Christian  impiety  ;  the  "  Philosophers  "  inculcate  scepticism — 
The  good  and  the  evil  struggling  for  the  mastery  in  1846 — 
Progress  of  Catholic  institutions  down  to  1878 — Progress 
of  anti  Catholic  teaching  and  passions — Which  force  will 
overcome  the  other  ? — The  secret  anti-Christian  societies 
masters  of  the  Government  and  of  France  in  1878 — The  ma- 
jority and  the  minority  in  the  population  of  France — Sum  of 
active  forces  in  each — Armed  resistance  out  of  the  question — 
Organization,  cohesion,  unity  of  purpose  and  action  necessary 
among  Catholics — These  elements  did  not  exist — What  was 
Leo  XIII.  to  do? — 1880:  Suppression  of  the  Religious  Or- 
ders— Letter  of  Leo  XIII.  to  Cardinal  Guibert — A  noble  de- 
fence of  the  Religious  Orders — It  was  only  shouting  at  Niagara 
to  stop  its  rushing  waters — The  majority  of  the  French  nation 
disfranchised  virtually — How  French  Republicans  understand 
liberty — Leo  XIII.  severely  blamed  by  Frenchmen — Elections 
of  1885 — Letter  of  Cardinal  Guibert  to  President  Grevy — A 
prophetic  voice  from  France 495-521 

CHAPTER   XXXII. 

LEO   XIII.    AND  THE   SPOLIATION   OF  THE  PROPAGANDA. 

The  great  missionary  school  of  the  Propaganda — Annual  Academy 
held  on  January  6,  the  Feast  of  the  Epiphany— In  iSSo  the 
Academy  held  in  the  Vatican — Protestant  admiration  for  this 
College  and  for  the  Congregation  de  Propaganda  Fide,  on 
which  it  depends — For  a  truly  Catholic  Italy  the  Propaganda 
would  be  a  wonderful  source  of  influence  abroad — The  Pied- 
montese  Government  determined  to  extinguish  the  institution 
— First  seizure  and  sale  of  its  property  in  1874 — Lawsuits  end- 
ing in  decree  of  January  29,  1884,  decreeing  the  conversion  of 
its  property  into  state  bonds — Leo  XIII.'s  protests  on  March 
2  and  March  24 — Diplomatic  note  of  February  10  to  the  Ca- 
tholic Powers — Effect  of  this  act  of  the  Piedmontese  Govern- 
ment on  public  opinion  abroad 522-538 


CONTENTS.  29 

CHAPTER  XXXIII. 

LEO  XIII.  AND  SPAIN. 

"The  Prince  of  Peace" — Papal  Mediation — Its  necessity  acknow-  PAGE 
ledged  by  non-Catholic  writers — The  mediatorial  office  an  un- 
mitigated blessing — This  is  demonstrated  by  the  mediation  of 
Leo  XIII.  between  Spain  and  Germany — History  of  the  diffi- 
culty about  the  Carolinas  Islands — Prince  Bismarck  offers  to 
submit  the  question  of  right  to  the  Pope  ;  accepted  by  Spain 
— Speedy  termination  of  the  inquiry — Judgment  accepted  and 
ratified  by  both  Governments — Death  of  Alfonso  XII. — Leo 
XIII. 's  account  of  the  mediation — Restoration  of  this  media- 
torial office  of  the  Papacy  most  desirable — It  would  be  a  boon 
to  the  nations — Interest  taken  by  the  Pope  in  the  shrine  of  St. 
James  at  Compostella — History  of  the  shrine — Pope  Calixtus 
II.  and  Compostella — The  relics  of  St.  James  and  his  disci- 
ples hidden  away  in  the  sixteenth  century — Rediscovered  by 
Cardinal  Paya — The  question  of  authenticity  submitted  to 
Leo  XIII. — He  sends  Monsignor  Caprara  to  Compostella — 
Decision  of  the  Pope — The  birth  of  Alfonso  XIII. — The  Pope 
his  godfather APPENDIX  E:  Mediation 539~56i 

CHAPTER  XXXIV. 
THE  PRISONER  OF  THE  VATICAN  AND  THE  JUBILEE  OP  1887 562-576 

APPENDIXES 579-587 


ILLUSTRATIONS. 


ALL  the  illustrations  in  this  work  are  full-page  engrav- 
ings executed  by  the  BEST  AMERICAN  ENGRAVERS,  from 
original  photographs  SENT  FROM  ROME  expressly  for  this 
book.  None  of  them  have  ever  before  appeared  in  print, 
and  they  form  a  valuable  and  interesting  ADDITION  to  the 
life  of  the  illustrious  Pontiff. 

PAGE 

Fine  steel  engraving  of  the  Pope,  engraved  from  a  photograph  pre- 
sented by  the  Holy  Father,  with  his  autograph  signature,  expressly 

for  this  book Frontispiece 

St.  Peter's  in  Montorio,  erected  on  the  spot  where  St.  Peter,  the  first 

Pope,  was  crucified  head  downwards 35 

Panoramic  View  of  the  Village  of  Carpineto,  birthplace  of  Leo  XIII. .     39 

The  house  in  which  Leo  XIII.  was  born  at  Carpineto 48 

Church  of  St.  Leo,  Carpineto,  attended  by  His  Holiness  when  a  boy..  54 
Interior  of  the  Church  of  St.  Leo,  Carpineto,  restored  by  Leo  XIII. . .  6r 
Fine  colored  plate  accurately  representing  Leo  XIII.  in  his  Audience 

Chamber,  clothed  in  his  Pontifical  robes facing  113 

Door  of  the  Municipal  Hall,  Cathedral  Square,  Perugia 146 

Cathedral  Square,  Perugia,  showing  the  great  Fountain,  the  Municipal 
Hall  on  the  left,  and  the  Cathedral  on  the  right,  where  Leo  XIII. 

was  Bishop  for  thirty-two  years 159 

Quirinal  Palace — old  Palace  of  the  Popes  179 

Tomb  of  Pius  IX.  in  the  Church  of  San  Lorenzo,  outside  the  walls  of 

Rome 191 

The  Tiber  :    St.    Peter's   in   the    distance  ;  Castle  and    Bridge  of  St. 

Angelo 2ii 

Panoramic  View  of  Rome  from  the  Roof  of  St.  Peter's 223 

Front  View  of  St.  Peter's  and  the  Vatican 247 

Interior  of  St.  Peter's  Church 255 

Palace  of  the  Vatican — Residence  of  the  Pope 273 

Fine  colored  plate  accurately  representing  the  officers  and  guards  of 

the  Palace  of  the  Vatican,  in  full  uniform facing  304 

His  Holiness  taking  recreation  in  the  Garden  of  the  Vatican 337 

Interior  of  the  Vatican  Library 369 

Pio  Clementino  Hall  of  Statuary,  Vatican  Museum 401 

Interior  of  the  Sistine  Chapel  in  the  Vatican 443 

Braccio  Nuovo  :  Statuary  Collection,  Vatican  Museum 489 

Museo  Chiaramonti—  Vatican  Gallery  of  Ancient  Sculpture 519 

Garden  of  the  Pope,  Vatican,  Recreation  Place  of  His  Holiness 541 

Leo  XIII.  on  his  Throne  in  his  Private.  Audience  Room 564 

Fine  steel  engraving  of   Lucido  Maria  Parocchi,  Cardinal   Vicar   to 
His  Holiness facing  5?3 


PART  FIRST. 


EARLY  LIFE  OF  JOACHIM  PECCI  TILL  HIS  ELEVATION  TO    THE 
PRIESTHOOD,  INCLUSIVELY.     March  2,  i8io-Z>«r.  31,  1837. 


CHAPTER  I. 

Auguror :  Apparent  flammantia  lumina  coelo, 
Sidereoque  rubens  fulget  ab  axe  dies. 

—LEO  XIII.,  Poems. 

*  1  |  *LL  through  the  long  Pontificate  of  Pius  IX.,  espe- 
^J^  1  ,  cially  when  troubles  thickened  around  him,  peo- 
ple could  not  help  saying  that  the  words  Crux  dc  Cruce — 
41  Cross  upon  Cross  " — of  the  celebrated  prophecy  attribut- 
ed to  St.  Malachy,  were  verified  in  his  bitter  and  prolonged 
trials.  While  writing,  in  1878,  the  Life  of  that  Pope,  the 
Author  could  not  help  asking  himself,  Who  was  to  be  his 
successor?  For  the  prophecy  depicts  the  Pontiff  taking  up 
the  cross  laid  down  by  Pius  as  "  Light  in  the  Heavens  " — 
Lumen  in  Coelo. 

Truly  the  unprecedentedly  long  reign  of  the  late  Pope 
had  closed  with  the  darkest  days  ever  known  to  the  Papacy 
since  the  times  of  the  early  persecutions.  The  States  of 
the  Church  had  been  absorbed  by  the  new  kingdom  of 
Italy.  In  the  palace  of  the  Quirinal  was  throned  a  power 
more  hostile  to  everything  Catholic  than  Henry  VIII.  or 
Elizabeth,  and  supported  by  a  Parliament  whose  policy 
and  principles  are  infinitely  more  irreconcilable  with 
Catholicism  than  the  policy  and  principles  of  Cromwell 
and  his  Parliament.  The  two  most  powerful  empires  in 
Europe,  those  of  Germany  and  Russia,  had  broken  off 
all  diplomatic  intercourse  with  him  who  was,  in  a  very  true 
sense,  "  the  Prisoner  of  the  Vatican."  Republican  France, 
in  the  hands  of  Voltairean  sceptics  and  radical  revolution- 
ists, was  with  difficulty  withheld  from  breaking  openly  with 
the  Pope.  Spain  was  friendly,  but  powerless  to  help  him. 
Austria,  like  Belgium  and  Portugal,  was  secretly  ruled 
by  these  occult  but  powerful  organizations,  which  gave 
the  law  to  the  President  of  the  French  Republic,  as  well 
as  to  the  successor  of  Victor  Emmanuel.  Great  Britain, 


34  LIfE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

which  had  efficiently  aided  in  despoiling  the  Pope  of  his 
States,  never  had,  since  the  reign  of  James  II.,  sent  an 
official  representative  to  the  Holy  See  ;  and  the  Repub- 
lican Congress  of  the  United  States  had,  after  .our  war, 
and  forgetful  of  the  thousands  of  Catholics  who  had  died 
for  the  Union,  suppressed  the  American  Legation  at  the 
Vatican.  It  was  an  ungenerous  and  impolitic  act,  which 
another  Congress  and  President  will  not  fail  to  undo  in 
the  near  future. 

But  meanwhile  Pius  IX.  died,  seemingly  abandoned  by 
all  the  nations  who  could  help  him  effectually,  and  given 
over  to  the  absolute  dominion  of  the  power  which  had 
stripped  him  of  everything  save  the  precarious  tenure  of 
the  Vatican  and  its  garden,  with  the  mockery  of  a  sove- 
reign title,  and  which  at  any  time  could  seize  the  Vatican 
itself  and  leave  the  Pope  without  a  roof  in  Rome  or  in 
all  Italy  he  could  call  his  own. 

It  was  dark  indeed.  And  how  and  whence  was  the 
light  to  come  amid  this  settled  and  ever-deepening  gloom 
above  St.  Peter's  and  the  venerable  seat  of  an  authority 
which  had  outlived  that  of  the  Caesars,  of  Charlemagne 
and  the  Germano-Roman  emperors  who  succeeded  to  his 
title  ? 

The  bright,  solitary  star  which,  in  the  ancient  family 
escutcheon  of  the  Pecci,*  sheds  so  brilliant  a  radiance  on 
the  earth  beneath,  might,  and  doubtless  did,  to  some  per- 
sons appear  an  augury  of  coming  dawn,  of  hope  of  better 
things  for  the  Papacy,  for  Christianity  itself. 

But,  leaving  out  of  the  question  the  prophecy  and  its 
suggestions,  there  is  in  the  brief  reign  of  Leo  XIII.  enough 
of  splendid  achievement  to  justify  the  pregnant  words  of 
the  prediction,  had  it  been  authentic.  Against  all  seeming 
hope,  against  all  the  most  solemn  utterances  of  political 
prophets  in  both  hemispheres,  the  moral  superiority  which 
Leo  XIII.  established  for  himself  by  his  noble  character, 
by  the  firm  but  gentle  dignity  of  his  official  letters,  and  by 
the  incomparable  eloquence  and  elevation  of  his  solemn 

*  See  Coat  of  Arms  of  Leo  XIII.  on  the  cover. 


ST     PETER'S   IN    MONTORIO. 

ERECTED  ON  THE  SPOT  WHERE  ST.  PETER,   THE  FIRST  POPE,  WAS    CRUCIFIED  HEAD  DOWNWARDS. 

35 


36  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

teachings  addressed  to  the  Universal  Church,  has  dis- 
armed prejudice  and  hostility.  As  we  write  it  is  hoped 
that  Germany  is  again  renewing  with  the  Holy  See  the 
friendly  relations  of  other  times,  repealing  the  oppressive 
l.iws  enacted  against  Catholics,  and  paying,  in  the  eyes  of 
the  civilized  world,  the  most  exalted  homage  to  the  per- 
sonal character  and  sovereign  rank  of  the  Roman  Pontiff. 
At  the  same  time  Russia,  which  had  already  made  ap- 
proaches toward  conciliation,  is  said  to  be  sending  a  spe- 
cial envoy  to  negotiate  about  the  sad  condition  of  Polish 
Catholics  and  other  delicate  and  difficult  religious  matters 
in  the  empire. 

Great  as  is  this  result,  brilliant  as  is,  assuredly,  the  light 
shed  from  the  Chair  of  Peter  during  the  eight  years  already 
passed  of  this  Pontificate,  the  life  of  the  man  himself,  from 
his  childhood  to  his  sixty-eighth  year,  when  chosen  to  fill 
the  place  of  Pius  IX.,  is  one  long,  luminous  track,  marked 
at  its  every  stage  by  the  gentlest,  noblest  virtues,  by  all 
those  qualities  which  endear  a  man  to  all  who  know  and 
approach  him,  by  those  utterances  and  deeds  which  all 
who  value  still  what  is  most  fundamental  in  Christianity 
are  sure  to  admire  and  to  praise. 

Thus  the  personage  whom  we  present  to  the  study  and 
admiration  of  the  reader  in  the  following  chapters  is  not 
merely  a  great  man,  a  great  Pope,  a  great  and  eloquent 
teacher  of  all  Christians  and  all  mankind  :  he  was  a  good 
and  a  true  man  in  every  relation  of  life  in  which  he  was 
placed ;  a  gentle,  docile,  loving  son ;  a  child  and  a  boy 
pious  and  thoughtful  beyond  his  years,  but  a  bright, 
joyous,  manly,  generous  boy.  And  all  the  sweet  pro- 
mises which  blossomed  forth  in  his  boyhood  and  youth 
were  realized  in  the  rich  fruits  of  maturer  years. 

It  is  only  by  looking  well  into  the  life  of  him  who  is 
now  Leo  XIII.,  at  all  its  stages,  that  one  sees  how  beau- 
tiful it  is.  His  pure,  gentle,  but  erect  figure  is  one  Fra 
Angclico  could  have  delighted  to  paint ;  his  life  would 
have  been  worthy  of  the  pen  which  wrote  the  "  Fioriti 
di  San  Francesco." 


CHAPTER  II. 

BIRTHPLACE — PARENTAGE — HOME  AND    MOTHER. 

HE  subject  of  this  biography  was  born  at  Carpineto 
on  March  2,  1810. 

There  are  several  places  in  Italy  all  but  identical  in 
name  with  Carpineto — called  sometimes  Carpineto  Roma- 
no, so  called  because  it  belonged  to  the  territory  immedi- 
ately surrounding  Rome.  The  most  conspicuous  of  these 
localities,  outside  of  Latium,  is  the  ancient  fortress  of 
Carpineti,  on  a  spur  of  the  ^Emilian  Apennines,  near  Reg- 
gio,  which  was  a  favorite  residence  of  Matilda,  Countess 
of  Tuscany,  the  protectress  of  Pope  Gregory  VII.  and 
the  benefactress  of  the  Papacy. 

Our  Carpineto — to  use  the  words  of  the  authentic  manu- 
script notes  given  to  us  to  be  our  guide  in  this  narrative — 
"  is  a  populous  little  town  of  five  thousand  inhabitants, 
situated  in  a  cleft  of  the  Monti  Lepini,"  a  portion  of  the 
Volscian  range  nearest  to  Velletri.  "  It  is  an  eagle  s  nest, 
placed  for  security  high  above  the  plain,  between  two 
gigantic  rocks."*  In  ancient  times  it  was  fortified,  some 
parts  of  the  ruined  walls  and  towers  still  remaining  to 
attest  the  fact.  Within  its  neighborhood  also  stood  the 
Volscian  city  of  Cuentra,  destroyed  by  the  Romans,  and 
the  ancient  fortress  of  Pruni,  ruined — so  the  local  tradi- 
tions say — by  the  Duke  of  Alba's  soldiery  in  the  sixteenth 
century.  Its  remains  are  still  pointed  out  to  visitors. 

•          THE   BIRTHPLACE   OF   LEO   XIII. 

The  mediaeval  town  became  a  feudal  possession  of  the 
Aldobrandini.  Cardinal  Pietro  Aldobrandini,  nephew  of 

*  Such  was  the  picturesque  expression  used  by  the  venerable  Cardinal 
Joseph  Pecci  in  describing  to  the  author  the  mountain-home  of  his  family. 

37 


38  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

Pope  Clement  VIII.  (1592-1605),  built  there  at  his  own 
expense  a  monastery  for  Reformed  Franciscan  Monks, 
which  we  shall  have  occasion  to  mention  more  than  once. 

Four  parish  churches,  one  of  them  being  a  collegiate 
church  founded  by  Pope  Clement  XIV.,  himself  a  Fran- 
ciscan, ministered  to  the  spiritual  needs  of  the  population. 
Two  of  these  were  Gothic  structures  of  the  fifteenth  cen- 
tury, dating  from  the  Pontificate  of  Calixtus  III.  (1455-58). 
All  of  them,  in  the  year  of  grace  1810,  were  in  a  sad  state 
of  dilapidation.  The  French  Republican  soldiers  had  pass- 
ed there  also,  committing  their  wonted  sacrilegious  pillage 
and  destruction  ;  and  the  already  scanty  revenues  of  the 
parochial  clergy  had  been  reduced  to  the  merest  pittance 
by  the  Imperial  Government  in  Rome. 

The  elevated  position  of  Carpineto,  and  its  great  diffi- 
culty of  access  from  the  valley  of  Latium  beneath,  are  to 
this  day  obstacles  which  all  but  a  few  travellers,  students, 
or  artists  care  to  encounter.  The  railroad  which  sweeps 
around  the  eastern  flank  of  the  Volscian  range  leaves 
wayfarers  still  far  away  from  the  lofty  mountain-crest  with 
its  rare  towns,  hamlets,  and  ruins.  And  yet  in  the  late  au- 
tumn or  the  lovely  spring  weather  a  drive  from  the  nearest 
railway-station  in  the  valley,  Segni,  up  the  narrowing  defile 
or  cleft  in  the  mountain-side,  through  which  tumbles  ever 
a  foaming  torrent,  is  one  of  unmingled  delight.  The  wild, 
weird,  and  ever-changing  scenery  of  the  defile,  with  its 
lofty  walls  of  rock,  its  trees  and  shrubs  of  every  shade  of 
green  ;  the  wild  flowers  that  bloom  on  every  side  along  the 
path  of  the  stage-coach ;  the  luminous  haze  which  fills  the 
air  in  November,  as  well  as  in  March  and  April,  and  which, 
as  you  look  back  into  the  valley  or  catch  a  glimpse  of  the 
distant  hills,  shrouds  every  distant  object  with  a  veil  of 
every  shade  of  blue,  fading  often  into  delicate  purple ;  the 
bracing,  invigorating  mountain-air — all  fill  one's  soul  with 
a  sense  of  deep  joy 

About  a  mile  from  the  top  your  vctturino  points  out, 
at  the  top  of  a  sloping  green  expanse  between  two  lofty 
acclivities,  the  country-house  of  the  Pecci  family  amid 


4O  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

clumps  of  tall  chestnut-trees.  It  is  a  beautiful  position ; 
and  one  can  fancy  how  happy  parents,  surrounded  by  a 
band  of  joyous  children,  could  develop  mind  and  heart  be- 
neath yonder  shades  and  on  that  greensward,  from  which 
the  eye  can  wander  over  panoramas  of  surpassing  grandeur. 

AN  EAGLE'S  NEST. 

But  here  we  are  on  the  unequal  rocky  plateau  of  Car- 
pineto — truly  an  eagle's  eyrie  fitting  in  between  two  enor- 
mous crags.  No  wonder  that  the  first  Pelasgi  or  Etrusci 
who  wandered  hither  from  the  East,  in  quest  of  a  secure 
and  permanent  home,  should  have  fixed  upon  this  almost 
inaccessible  and  impregnable  site.  The  quaint,  mediaeval 
houses  and  streets  straggle  among  the  inequalities  of  the 
surface.  And  through  them,  to  the  very  highest  point  of 
the  plateau,  the  stage-coach  labors  along  till  it  leaves  you 
in  front  of  a  fifteenth-century  palatial  pile,  with  a  church 
adjoining  and  separating  it  from  the  residence  of  the  paro- 
chial clergy. 

The  masters  of  this  palace  in  1810  were  Domenico 
Lodovico  Pecci,  then  in  his  forty-first  year,  and  his  wife, 
Anna  Prosperi-Buzi,  who  was  in  her  thirty-seventh.  Their 
union  has  been  blessed  with  six  children — four  boys  and 
two  girls — the  youngest  child  being  an  infant  just  baptized, 
to  whom  have  been  given  the  names  of  JOACHIM  VINCENT 
RAPHAEL  LODOVICO  (or  Louis).  He  is  the  subject  of  this 
biography.  The  other  children  are :  Charles,  a  lad  of  six- 
teen ;  Anna  Maria,  almost  twelve ;  Caterina,  who  is  in  her 
tenth  year;  John  Baptist,  in  his  eighth  ;  and  Joseph,  who  is 
just  beginning  his  fourth.* 

*  Domenico  Lodovico  Pecci  was  born  June  2,  1769,  and  died  March  8r 
1838.  His  wife,  Anna  Prosperi-Buzi,  was  born  December  30,  1773,  and 
died  August  5,  1824.  Of  their  seven  children,  CARLO  was  born  November 
25.  T793.  ar|d  died  in  Rome  August  29,  1879;  ANNA  MARIA,  born  May  25, 
1798,  died  August  27,  1870  ;  CATERINA,  born  November  4,  1800,  died  June 
13, 1867;  GIOVAN  BATTISTA,  born  October  20.  1802  ;  GIUSEPPE,  born  Febru- 
ary 15.  1807;  GIOACCHINO,  born  March  2,  1810;  FERDINANDO,  born  Janu- 
ary 7,  1816,  died  at  college  in  his  fourteenth  year. 


ANCESTR  Y  OF  LEO  XIII.  4 1 

THE   PECCI    FAMILY. 

But  who  are  these  Pecci  in  whose  fortunes  we  desire  to 
interest  our  readers  ? 

The  Pecci  are  of  a  noble  Siennese  stock.  Since  the 
accession  to  the  Pontifical  Chair  of  Leo  XIII.  travellers  in 
the  ancient  and  most  interesting  mediaeval  city  are  shown 
the  Pecci  Palace,  adjoining  the  Cathedral  Square,  and  in 
the  cathedral  itself  the  tombs  of  some  high  dignitaries  of 
that  name  are  pointed  out.  When  the  evil  days  preceding 
the  reign  of  Duke  Cosimo  I.  dei  Medici  had  involved  heroic 
Siena  in  a  deadly  but  unequal  struggle  with  her  old  rival 
and  enemy,  Florence — or,  rather,  with  the  Medici  family, 
which  had  destroyed  the  liberties  of  the  latter,  and  was 
bent  on  forcing  the  republican  Siennese  to  bend  their  nec'ks 
to  the  yoke — it  so  happened  that  the  Pecci  had  taken  sides 
against  their  countrymen.*  Under  the  Pontificate  of  Cle- 
ment VII.  (1523-34),  therefore,  a  branch  of  the  Pecci,  fa- 
vored by  that  Pope,  migrated  into  the  States  of  the 
Church  and  settled  at  Carpineto.  No  one  who  has  read 
the  thrilling  history  of  the  siege  of  Siena  by  the  Floren- 
tines under  the  Marquis  of  Melegnano — Giovanni  dei  Me- 
dici— but  will  easily  understand  how  fierce  and  indomitable 
a  spirit  animated  the  Siennese  women  as  well  as  men  against 
their  ancient  foe,  Florence,  and  how  hard  they  were  likely 
to  make  the  lot  of  such  of  their  own  £s  had  made  common 
cause  with  the  enemy. 

THE   PECCI   OF  CARPINETO. 

In  their  new  home  at  Carpineto  the  Pecci  were  not 
altogether  safe  from  the  warlike  bands  which  in  swift  suc- 

*The  MS.  in  our  hands  thus  relates  this  incident:  "  Un  ramo  della. 
nobile  famiglia  Pecci  di  Siena,  secondo  un'  antica  tradizione  domestica, 
sotto  il  Pontificate  di  Clemente  VII.,  si  trasferi  in  Carpineto,  costretto- 
ad  esulare  dalle  fazioni  di  quella  repubblica  e  rifugiarsi  negli  Stati  della 
Chiesa  col  favore  di  Papa  Clemente  VII.  della  famiglia  dei  Medici,  per  la 
quale,  come  e  fama,  avev.mo  parteggiato  i  Pecci."  A  note  in  the  corrected 
MS.  says:  "Esiste  sul  proposito  una  memoria  scritta  dal  Conte  Ceccopieri  di 
Modena." 


42  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIJI. 

cession  desolated  Italy  in  the  fifteenth  century,  allowing 
the  land  no  rest,  the  scourge  of  the  plague  ever  following 
fast  the  scourge  of  the  sword.  Still,  apparently  at  least, 
the  comparative  quiet  of  their  mountain  solitude  weaned 
their  minds  from  martial  pursuits  and  ambition  and  turned 
them  to  the  old  peaceful,  intellectual  avocations  and  cul- 
ture so  dear  to  the  proudest  Italian  aristocracy  of  the 
Catholic  ages.  Letters  and  the  law  never  seemed  to  the 
proudest  nobles  of  the  Italian  republics  a  profession  less 
honorable  than  that  of  arms.  The  professor's  chair  in  any 
one  of  the  great  mediaeval  universities  conferred,  in  public 
estimation,  a  higher  degree  of  nobility  than  that  of  birth  ; 
and  distinction  in  literature  and  science  made  its  professors 
the  companions  and  equals  of  princes  and  sovereigns. 

Therefore  it  is  that  we  find  among  the  Pecci  of  Carpi- 
neto  several  who  made  themselves  a  name  in  the  learned 
professions.  Ferdinand  Pecci  was  a  renowned  lawyer  in 
the  Pontificate  of  Benedict  XIV.  (1740-58)  ;  John  Baptist 
Pecci,  Vicar-General  of  Anagni,  was  appointed  Bishop  of 
Segni,  but  death  prevented  his  taking  possession  of  his 
see  ;  and  a  Monsignor  Joseph  Pecci  had  so  great  a  repu- 
tation in  the  Roman  law-courts  that  Pius  VI.  entrusted 
to  him  the  law-business  of  the  Braschi  family,  then  in- 
volved in  a  multitude  of  suits.  He  held  a  still  higher  place 
under  Pius  VII.,  who  made  him  Commissary-General  of  the 
Apostolic  Chamber,  a  position  to  which  was  attached  much 
power  and  influence. 

Count  Domenico  Lodovico  Pecci — or  Count  Lodovico, 
as  he  was  simply  styled — to  whom  we  have  introduced  the 
reader,  had  apparently  embraced  a  military  career,  or  was 
forced  into  it  by  Napoleon  I.,  who  needed  all  the  soldiers 
he  could  get,  and  drew  largely  from  the  Italian  populations 
to  recruit  his  armies.  Count  Lodovico  had  married  Anna 
Prosperi-Buzi,  the  daughter  of  a  noble  house  of  the  ancient 
Volsclan  city  of  Cora — the  modern  Cori — situated  on  the 
western  crest  of  the  same  Monti  Lepini,  and  not  very  far 
distant  from  Carpineto.  The  Prosperi-Buzi  held  in  the 
ancient  Volscian  stronghold  and  its  district  the  same  place 


BIRTH  OF  LEO  XIII. 


43 


which  the  Pecci  held  in  their  own  native  town.  And  the 
Countess  Anna  brought  to  her  husband  a  notable  increase 
of  property,  which  their  descendants  hold  to  this  day  in 
and  around  the  old  cyclopean  walls  made  so  famous  in. Ro- 
man history. 

But  she  brought  to  him  and  to  her  children  a  still  richer 
inheritance  of  Christian  virtues  and  noble  womanly  quali- 
ties. 

Her  fourth  son — destined  one  day  to  be  Leo  XIII. — 
was  born  on  March  2,  1810.  As  Carpineto  belonged  to 
the  diocese  of  Anagni,*  whose  bishop,  Joachim  Fosi,  was 
a  warm  friend  of  the  Pecci  family,  this  prelate  was  in- 
vited to  baptize  the  little  stranger  and  to  fulfil  toward 
him  the  office  of  godfather.  He  bestowed  on  his  godson 
the  names  of  Joachim  Vincent  Raphael  Louis.  The  name 
of  Vincent  was  given  him  at  the  special  request  of  the 
•countess,  who  had  a  special  veneration  for  the  great  Do- 
minican missionary,  St.  Vincent  Ferrer,  Archbishop  of 
Valencia ;  and  she  never  called  him  by  any  other  name. 
Indeed,  so  long  as  she  lived  the  child  and  boy  was  only 
known  by  the  name  of  Vincent  Pecci.  But  when  that 
worshipped  mother  was  taken  from  him,  and  especially 
since  1830,  he  assumed  and  retained  exclusively  the  name 
of  Joachim.  Was  this  to  show  still  more  his  reverence 
for  the  memory  of  this  admirable  woman  ?  Joachim  and 
Anna  are  the  names  given,  in  the  unbroken  tradition  of  the 
Churches  of  both  the  East  and  the  West,  to  the  parents 
of  the  Blessed  Virgin  Mary,  the  Mother  of  Christ.  Her 
name,  those  of  her  parents  and  relatives,  of  the  persons 
immediately  connected  with  Him  while  He  was  on  earth, 
such  as  the  apostles  and  disciples,  women  as  well  as  men, 
mentioned  in  the  New  Testament,  and  those  of  the  apos- 
tolic men  and  saintly  women  who  continued  Christ's  work 
in  the  first  centuries,  honored  His  faith  by  their  lives,  and 
bore  him  glorious  witness  by  their  death — have  ever  been 
especially  dear  in  Christian  households.  It  was  thought, 
in  the  firm  and  universal  belief  of  the  real  though  invisible 
*  The  native  place  of  Boniface  VIII. 


44  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

communion  between  the  spiritual  world  of  the  blessed  irr 
heaven  and  their  brethren  still  struggling  on  earth,  that  the 
bestowing  of  these  dear  and  honored  names  on  children 
in  baptism  secured  them  special  protectors  in  heaven,  and 
was  to  them  a  powerful  motive,  when  grown  to  manhood 
and  womanhood,  to  honor  by  Christian  lives  the  sainted 
names  they  bore. 

So  Joseph,  Joachim,  Anna,  Mary,  and  all  those  sweet 
names    so    familiar  in  Catholic  countries,  are  only  flowers- 
of  Eastern  birth,  transplanted  into    the    home-gardens  of 
European  peoples  and  shedding  their  sweet  fragrance  there. 

Of  the  five  sons,  one,  and  he  the  youngest,  died  in  his- 
fourteenth  year  and  while  pursuing  his  studies  in  Rome. 
So  that  within  the  tapestried  walls  of  the  Pecci  Palace  in 
Carpineto,  as  well  as  on  the  greensward  and  beneath  the 
chestnut  groves  of  their  country  residence  outside  of  the 
town,  the  fond  and  pious  mother  saw  herself  surrounded 
by  a  joyous  circle  of  seven  doting  and  happy  children. 
And  both  she  and  her  husband  were  such  parents  as  could 
and  would  make  home  a  paradise  for  their  dear  ones,  a 
sanctuary  of  peace,  piety,  hospitality,  and  charity  in  the 
eyes  of  servants  and  dependants,  of  relatives  and  friends, 
and  of  the  suffering  and  the  needy  far  and  near. 

She  must  have  been  not  only  a  lovely  and  loving  wife 
and  mother,  but  a  noble  and  worshipped  Christian  woman, 
this  Countess  Anna  Pecci,  whose  portrait,  taken  in  the  first 
years  of  her  motherhood,  still  hangs  in  the  great  hall  of  her 
palace  at  Carpineto  by  the  side  of  her  handsome  young  hus- 
band. 

For  the  writer  of  these  pages  it  was  extremely  touching 
to  hear  her  third  son,  the  venerable  Cardinal  Pecci  of  to- 
day, recount,  with  a  voice  not  unshaken  by  emotion,  the 
qualities  of  the  parent  taken  from  her  children  all  too  soon. 
"  She  was,  in  truth,  most  devoted  to  the  poor,"  he  said. 
"She  was  always  working  for  them.  In  seasons  of  great 
distress  she  had  daily  supplies  of  bread  baked  for  them. 
You  know  how  fond  our  peasants  are  of  polenta,  or  rich,, 
nourishing  soup.  She  directed  in  person  and  watched  the 


THE  MOTHER  OF  LEO  XII 7. 


45 


servants  while  preparing  and  cooking  huge  caldrons  of  this 
species  of  pottage.  This,  as  well  as  the  bread,  was  dealt  out 
under  her  superintendence  to  all  who  needed  it.  And  she 
took  especial  care  that  the  sick  poor  who  could  not  leave 
their  homes  should  have  their  supply  sent  to  them ;  and 
that  the  bashful  poor  who  could  not  bear  to  have  their  dis- 
tress known  should  receive  assistance  in  such  a  delicate  way 
as  to  prevent  their  being  abased  thereby  in  their  own  eyes. 

"  She  was  the  soul  of  every  good  work  of  piety  and 
beneficence  that  was  set  afoot  in  the  town.  Indeed,  she 
started  many  of  them  herself.  But  all  this  active  outside 
charity  never  made  her  neglect  her  home-duties.  She  lav- 
ished on  us  all  a  mother's  most  devoted  tenderness." 

Both  the  count  and  countess  were  most  earnest  Chris- 
tians. This  union  of  minds  and  hearts  in  the  knowledge 
and  practice  of  the  holiest  and  most  ennobling  duties,  this 
one  common  hope  of  the  Christian's  exceeding  great  reward, 
was,  in  their  home  as  in  their  life,  the  light  which  bright- 
ened and  warmed  everything  around  them,  and  filled  with 
joy  and  bliss  the  hearts  of  their  children.* 

We  may  well  believe  that  the  law  of  home-life,  so  well 
proved  by  experience,  held  good  in  the  palace  of  the  Pecci, 
as  elsewhere  and  at  all  times :  that  the  generous  encourage- 
ment and  co-operation  of  the  husband  enable  the  wife  to 
attempt,  and  almost  to  accomplish,  impossibilities. 

*  In  the  Church  of  the  Stigmata,  where  this  good  woman  reposes  in 
death, .there  is  a  plain  marble  slab  on  the  floor,  which  records  her  worth  : 
"Anna  Alex.  F.  Prosperia,  egenorum  altrix,  filiorum  amantissima,  domo 
Cora,  Femina  veteris  sanctitatis,  frugi  munifica,  H.S.E.  Quae  omnis  ma- 
tris  familiae  munere  nitide  et  in  exemplum  perfuncta,  decessit  cum  luctu 
bonorum  Non.  Aug.  An.  M.DCCC.XXIV. — Vixit  dulciss.  cum  suis 
An. LI.  M.VII.  D.XI.  Ludovicus  Peccius  conjux  cum  liberis  moerenti- 
bus.  Mulieri  rarissimae  incomparabili  M.  P.  Ave.  Anima  Candidissima 
Te  in  pace." 


CHAPTER   III. 

DARKNESS    AM)    STORM,    AMID   WHICH    JOACHIM    VINCKNT 
1'ECCI    IS    BORN    AND    REARED. 

SO  passed,  under  the  loving  and  watchful  eye  of  the 
Countess  Anna  Pecci,  the  infancy  and  childhood  of 
her  two  oldest  sons,  amid  the  serene  atmosphere  of  these 
lofty  Volscian  hills,  while  Pius  VII.  was  cruelly  hurried,  in 
the  last  stage,  seemingly,  of  a  mortal  illness,  from  one  pri- 
son to  another;  while  the  towering  pride  of  the  French 
emperor,  bent  on  making  the  Church  of  Christ  an  instru- 
ment of  universal  domination  and  the  captive  Pope  a  docile 
tool  of  his  state  policy,  shut  up  his  venerable  prisoner  from 
all  communication  with  the  outside  world,  and  by  extreme 
and  unmanly  violence,  as  well  as  by  every  art  of  persuasion 
and  deception,  endeavored  to  extract  from  him  concessions 
fatal  to  religion.  From  the  heights  around  Carpineto  both 
the  countess  and  her  husband  could  listen  to  the  echoes  of 
the  mad  and  unholy  wars  kindled  by  the  Napoleonic  ambi- 
tion rolling  from  the  Straits  of  Gibraltar  to  the  shores  of 
the  Baltic,  and  hear  of  his  armies  driven  back  in  disastrous 
rout  from  the  gates  of  Madrid,  Moscow,  and  Leipsic  to 
those  of  Paris,  while  the  unquiet  spirit  of  the  foiled  con- 
queror and  pitiless  tyrant  broke  forth  from  its  prison  in  the 
Island  of  Elba  to  raise  a  fresh  whirlwind  of  flame  and  blood 
in  France;  only,  however,  to  be  vanquished  anew  at  Water- 
loo, and  sent  to  fret  and  pine  away  amid  the  torrid  rocks  of 
St.  Helena. 

Then  came  the  return  of  the  care-worn  and  gentle  Pius 
to  Italy  and  that  Rome  where  all  the  evil  spirits  that  Vol- 
taire and  the  Revolution  had  called  up  from  the  pit  and 
let  loose  in  France  had  been  allowed  to  reign  from  1797 
till  1814.  Nor  did  the  restoration  of  the  Pope  to  his  capi- 

46 


DARKXE SS  AND  STORM.  47 

tal,  or  of  the  other  Italian  princes  to  their  States,  put  a 
sudden  stop  to  the  propaganda  of  evil  so  long  carried  on 
in  the  Peninsula  with  consummate  skill  and  untiring 
energy. 

What  power  save  the  creative  power  of  nature,  or  rather 
of  nature's  God,  can  restore  in  a  great  country,  in  an  entire 
continent  utterly  devastated  by  flame  and  convulsed  by 
earthquakes,  the  beauty,  the  life,  the  order,  the  divine  har- 
mony of  all  things  destroyed  by  the  blind  rage  of  the  ele- 
mental forces?  What  husbandman,  though  never  so  skil- 
ful and  so  untiring,  can  weed  out  from  his  field  in  a  day, 
a  month,  a  single  season,  the  tares  which  his  enemy  has 
sown  during  the  night  over  the  seed-grain  cast  into  the 
furrows  ?  Besides,  the  deeper  and  richer  the  soil  the  more 
rapid  is  the  growth  of  the  noxious  weed,  and  the  more  dif- 
ficult the  task  of  ridding  the  land  of  its  presence. 

So  is  it  with  man's  moral  nature.  The  more  privileged 
a  people  is  in  all  the  rarest  gifts  of  intellect  and  heart,  the 
more  lavish  toward  them  has  been  the  bounty  of  Providence 
in  the  supernatural  order,  the  deeper  will  be  the  perversion 
effected  by  an  anti-Christian  propaganda.  What  ruin,  what 
desolation  is  comparable  to  the  sowing  of  the  minds  of  an 
entire  nation  with  errors,  prejudices,  passions,  which,  taking 
deep  root,  prevent  the  possibility  of  cultivating  or  planting 
therein  the  most  necessary  and  salutary  religious  notions? 

Such  had  been  the  process  carried  on  among  all  classes 
of  the  Italian  population  ever  since  the  days  of  Voltaire. 
His  works,  in  the  native  French,  in  excellent  translations, 
and  in  popular  editions,  had  been  sedulously  circulated 
from  one  end  of  the  Peninsula  to  the  other.  As  in  France, 
so  in  Italy,  scepticism  had  first  tainted  the  upper  classes, 
and  from  them  and  by  them  the  intellectual  pestilence 
had  been  spread  downwards  through  the  ambitious  mid- 
dle classes,  reaching  at  length  the  laboring  population  in 
city  and  country.  And  so,  when  the  Revolution  of  1789 
first  startled  Europe  by  its  utterances  and  innovations, 
every  one  of  its  doctrines  found  a  wide  echo  in  Italy, 
and  too  willing  apostles  among  the  titled  and  the  learned 


THE  HOUSE  IN  WHICH  LEO  Xin.  WAS  BORN  AT  OARPINETO. 


ITALY  UNDER  THE  REVOLUTION.  49 

devoted  all  their  energy  and  influence  to  the  work  of  popu- 
larizing it.  When  Voltaireanism  and  Illuminism  had  be- 
come incarnate  in  the  Revolution  of  1793,  and  sent  their 
armies  into  Italy  a  few  years  later,  there  were  found, 
unhappily,  but  too  many  influential  Italians  to  hail  their 
advent  as  the  hosts  of  the  new  Liberty  which  denied 
God  and  declared  war  on  the  existing  order  of  things. 

Napoleon's  inconsistent  and  spasmodic  efforts  to  restore 
the  altars  which  his  soldiers  had  polluted  and  torn  down, 
and  to  use,  in  forwarding  his  own  schemes  of  domination, 
the  mighty  moral  forces  of  religion,  were  productive,  in 
Italy,  of  more  harm  than  good.  From  one  end  of  the 
Peninsula  to  the  other,  he,  his  officers,  his  soldiers,  his 
co-operators  and  abettors  of  every  degree  and  occupa- 
tion, had  for  a  quarter  of  a  century  taught  a  religious 
people  to  despise,  to  hate,  to  ridicule,  to  outrage  religion 
and  its  ministers ;  taught  Catholics  to  look  upon  the 
august  Head  of  the  Church  as  a  usurper  in  the  politi- 
cal order,  as  an  anomaly  and  an  anachronism  in  the  new 
social  order  inaugurated  by  the  Revolution.  The  revenues 
derived  from  the  Pontifical  States — a  peaceful  principality 
created  and  guaranteed  by  Christendom  to  the  Common 
Father — were  seized.  They  had  ever  been  devoted  to  the 
fostering  in  Rome  and  throughout  Italy  of  the  Religious 
Orders  and  other  institutions — the  well-springs  of  educa- 
tion, piety,  and  the  apostolic  spirit  at  home,  the  nurser- 
ies of  the  missionaries  who  spread  the  name  of  Christ 
and  the  blessings  of  true  civilization  among  the  heathen 
peoples  of  both  hemispheres.  All  Church  property,  all 
establishments  of  education  and  beneficence,  the  houses 
and  revenues  of  the  Religious  Orders  especially,  were 
seized  by  the  Revolutionary  armies.  The  confiscations, 
the  plunder,  the  destruction,  the  violation  of  the  most 
sacred  rights,  and  the  disorder  thereby  caused  in  the 
popular  mind  and  heart,  in  the  most  deep-seated  notions, 
beliefs,  and  customs,  constituted  a  condition  of  things  so 
chaotic  that  no  length  of  time,  no  labor  of  restoration, 
no  efforts  of  the  discredited  ministers  of  religion  to  build 


50  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

up  anew  the  material  temple  or  to  win  back  the  confi- 
dence of  the  alienated  populations,  have  achieved  anything 
like  a  real  success,  even  down  to  our  day. 

And  when  the  wave  of  French  invasion  had  retired 
beyond  the  Alps,  all  the  germs  of  evil  deposited  in  the 
soil  of  Italy  sprang  up  and  brought  forth  the  harvest  that 
we  know  of.  We  know,  too,  how  well  the  second  gene- 
ration of  revolutionists  have  applied  their  wide-spread  or- 
ganizations to  the  cultivating  in  the  souls  of  the  people, 
with  a  scientific  and  fatal  certainty,  of  all  this  growth  of 
evil  principles. 

Pius  VII.  returned  to  Rome  on  May  24,  1814,  to  find 
before  him,  in  the  political,  social,  moral,  and  material  ruin 
wrought  by  the  French  occupation,  and  the  action  of  all 
the  anti-Christian  forces  which  had  so  long  reigned  su- 
preme in  Italy,  a  state  of  things  which  might  well  fill 
the  youngest,  the  strongest,  the  bravest  with  dismay  and 
discouragement. 

Such  was  the  social  and  religious  condition  of  their 
beautiful  native  land  amid  which  Lodovico  and  Anna 
Pecci  saw  their  little  family  increase  and  grow  up  around 
them.  How  were  they  to  preserve  them  from  the  irreli- 
gious indifference,  the  contempt,  the  hatred  of  all  things 
holy,  the  habit  of  deriding  the  past,  the  false  notions 
about  liberty,  the  seductive  theories  about  philanthropy 
and  equality,  which  were  floating  for  ever  in  the  atmos- 
phere, and  carried  on  the  wings  of  the  wind  like  germs 
of  intellectual  and  moral  distempers  more  fatal  than  the 
cholera  of  1832  or  the  Black  Plague  of  1347? 

Where  should  they  find  for  their  sons,  bright  and  quick, 
and  eager  to  learn  as  these  were,  masters  they  could  trust, 
schools  without  danger  to  piety  and  morality? 

Count  Pecci  and  his  wife,  though  tenderly  attached  to 
their  boys,  and  knowing  how  much  their  home  and  their 
brothers  and  sisters  would  miss  them,  felt  that  Carpineto, 
on  its  mountain-crest,  was  not  the  place  in  which  to  find 
a  school  fitted  to  prepare  young  men  for  public  life.  Rome 
was  near  at  hand  ;  and  in  Rome  the  Popes  had  ever  been 


BONAPARTE  AND  THE  PAPACY.  51 

solicitous  to  create  and  maintain  the  most  efficient  estab- 
lishments of  Christian  education.  Indeed,  the  worst  ene- 
mies of  the  Papacy,  who  do  not  wilfully  shut  their  eyes  to 
the  evidence  of  historical  truth,  are  wont  to  confess  that 
the  Popes  have  been  as  much  the  generous  foster-parents 
of  letters  and  science  as  they  have,  confessedly,  been  the 
most  liberal  patrons  of  the  fine  arts. 

But  the  passage  of  the  Revolutionary  armies  through 
Rome  and  Italy  had  been  as  destructive  to  all  educational 
institutions,  to  all  serious  intellectual  culture,  to  the  monu- 
ments with  which  Christian  art  had  covered  Italy,  and  to 
the  beautiful  creations  of  Christian  genius,  as  had  been  the 
invasions  of  Attila  and  Genseric.  What  the  blind  and 
impious  rage  of  Bonaparte's  Sans-Culottes  did  not  destroy 
or  mutilate  was  carried  away  beyond  the  Alps.  Paris, 
not  Rome,  was  intended  to  be  the  centre  of  civilization  as 
of  dominion,  and  the  parent  of  all  culture  in  the  new  era 
which  had  dawned  with  the  year  1/93.  But  that  culture 
and  civilization  were  founded  on  principles  in  every  way 
antagonistic  to  those  which  had  formed  and  constituted 
Christendom.  Even  when  General  Bonaparte  became  con- 
sul and  then  emperor,  his  blundering  and  inconsistent  ef- 
forts to  reorganize  in  Italy  a  system  of  national  education 
in  harmony  with  the  new  Revolutionary  creed,  as  well  as 
with  his  own  notions  of  Christianity,  only  resulted,  as  they 
did  in  France,  in  paganizing  the  spirit  and  teaching  of 
public  schools  of  every  grade. 

His  war  on  the  Papacy,  his  usurpation  of  the  States  of 
the  Church  and  of  the  government  of  Rome,  naturally  led 
him,  and  those  who  carried  out  his  will  in  the  patrimony  of 
St.  Peter,  to  infuse  into  educational  establishments  of  all 
kinds  an  anti-papal,  an  anti-Catholic,  and,  without  his  in- 
tending it  directly,  an  anti-Christian  spirit  and  tendency 
which  Pius  VII.  and  his  successors  have  consistently  com- 
bated, without  being  able  effectually  to  exorcise  it  from  the 
land. 

The  first  great  triumph  of  irreligion,  in  the  last  half  of 
the  eighteenth  century,  was  to  obtain,  through  the  tyran- 


52  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

nic  influence  of  the  united  Bourbon  sovereigns,  the  sup- 
pression of  the  Jesuits — the  great  teaching  body  in  the 
Church — and  to  substitute  for  their  numerous  colleges  in 
all  Latin  countries  a  thoroughly  organized  system  of  na- 
tional non-religious  education,  as  in  Spain  and  Portugal, 
where  the  anti-Christian  philosophers  had  it  all  their  own 
way,  on  the  "  Philosophic  "  or  Voltairean  methods  which 
prevailed  in  France  till  Napoleon  created  his  National  Uni- 
versity—the most  potent  engine,  next  to  the  secret  socie- 
ties, ever  devised  by  Caesarism  to  take  the  youth  of  a  na- 
tion out  of  the  hands  of  Christian  parents  and  the  control 
of  the  Church. 

The  first  care  of  Pius  VII.,  restored  to  his  people,  had 
been  to  devise  adequate  means  to  counteract  the  effects  of 
this  evil  teaching,  as  well  as  the  seductive  and  demoraliz- 
ing influence  of  so  many  years  of  horrible  scandals,  licen- 
tiousness, and  blasphemy. 

He  restored,  by  a  solemn  bull,  the  Society  of  Jesus,  sup- 
pressed by  Clement  XIV.  by  an  act  wrung  from  him  by 
the  threats  and  obsession  of  the  Bourbon  sovereigns,  and 
which  the  Pontiff  believed  to  be  necessary  to  save  the 
Church  from  the  gravest  dangers. 

To  the  Jesuits,  tried  in  the  furnace  by  such  long  suffer- 
ing as  the  innocent  alone  can  bear  in  silence,  and  purified 
by  the  fires  of  calumny,  by  imprisonment,  exile,  poverty, 
and  starvation,  Count  and  Countess  Pecci  resolved  to  en- 
trust their  boys. 

Joseph  and  Joachim  (or  Vincent,  as  the  latter  continued 
to  be  called  till  some  years  after  his  mother's  death)  were 
then  respectively  in  their  tenth  and  eighth  years.  It  was 
hard,  at  so  tender  an  age,  to  leave  the  warmth  and  shelter 
of  their  mother's  wing,  the  comforts  and  freedom  of  their 
blessed  mountain-home.  The  wise  parents  began,  in  the 
autumn  of  1817,  by  taking  their  sons  with  them  to  Rome, 
and,  after  some  days  spent  in  making  them  see  and  admire 
what  was  most  attractive  in  the  Eternal  City,  they  were 
left  for  some  months  in  the  family  of  their  Uncle  Antonio. 
Meanwhile  the  Jesuits  had  opened  a  college  at  Viterbo, 


EARL  Y  EDUCA  TION  OF  VINCENT  PECCI.  53 

which  was  soon  filled  with  the  sons  of  the  best  families 
of  Rome  and  all  Italy.  Thither,  in  the  autumn  of  1818, 
Joseph  and  Joachim  Vincent  Pecci  were  sent  to  begin  their 
long  and  careful  education  for  public  life. 

Whatever  opinions  may  be  entertained  or  expressed 
about  the  merits  or  disadvantages  of  schools  in  which  chil- 
dren of  either  sex  are  reared  away  from  their  parents  and 
deprived  of  a  mother's  loving  care,  of  the  examples  and 
the  safeguards  of  a  Christian  home,  certain  it  is  that  these 
Jesuits  of  Viterbo,  more  than  one  of  whom  had  travelled 
all  the  way  to  Russia  to  join  there  the  noble  band  of  exiles 
protected  by  the  czar,  were  intent  on  giving  to  the  youth 
confided  to  them  the  benefit  of  a  truly  homelike  Christian 
education.  They  had  toiled  much,  travelled  much,  sac- 
rificed much,  and  endured  manifold  sufferings  to  gather 
among  the  snows  and  wilds  of  the  Muscovite  Empire  the 
fruits  of  the  ripest  knowledge  and  the  ripest  virtue.  They 
yearned  to  impart  to  the  children  of  their  native  land  what 
they  had  themselves  acquired  at  such  a  cost — an  equally 
ardent  thirst  for  knowledge  and  for  moral  goodness. 

Such  were  the  masters  into  whose  hands  Joseph  and 
Vincent  Pecci  fell  at  Viterbo. 

As  our  chief  concern  is  with  the  latter,  it  is  interesting 
to  gather  from  authentic  records  how  it  fared  with  him 
during  the  six  years  he  remained  at  Viterbo  (1818-1824). 
The  tender  and  enlightened  piety  to  which  his  admirable 
mother  had  formed  him  was — as  became  the  most  beauti- 
ful flower  in  the  human  soul — still  further  cultivated  and 
perfected  by  men  who  prized  moral  excellence  above  all 
the  treasures  of  mere  knowledge.  But  while  guarding  and 
forming  the  heart,  they  also  formed  and  developed  the 
boy's  mind.  They  filled  him  with  a  love  for  the  ancient 
language  of  his  native  Latium,  and  for  the  classic  literature 
come  down  to  us  from  the  Augustan  age,  which  nothing 
could  satisfy  but  the  utmost  perfection  and  the  closest  re- 
semblance in  composition  and  diction  to  the  prose-writers, 
the  orators  and  poets  of  Rome.  Ever  since  the  school-boy 
of  Viterbo  has  become  the  teacher  of  the  Christian  world, 


CHURCH  OF  ST.  LEO.  CARPINETO, 

ATTINDIO    BY    His    HOLINI»»   WHIN   A    Bov. 

54 


A  MODEL  STUDENT.  55 

European  and  American  scholars  have  been  able  to  admire 
and  praise  the  classic  taste  and  exquisite  finish  of  the  pro- 
ductions of  his  pen,  in  prose  and  in  verse. 

He  gave  early  promise  of  uncommon  literary  distinc- 
tion. Just  as  he  had  completed  his  twelfth  year  a  college 
festival  was  got  up  to  welcome  the  Provincial  of  the  Jesuits, 
Father  Vincent  Pavani.  This  gave  to  Vincent  Pecci  the 
first  recorded  opportunity  of  showing  his  proficiency  in 
Latin  verse,  as  well  as  his  admiration  for  the  character  of 
the  venerable  man  who  honored  the  name  of  Vincent.* 

His  masters,  at  the  same  time,  bore  unanimous  testi- 
mony to  the  boy's  tender  piety  and  spotless  purity  of  soul. 
A  very  serious  sickness  which  he  had  during  the  college 
sessions  of  1821  impaired  not  a  little  the  robust  health 
nourished  in  the  bracing  air  of  his  native  Volscian  hills. 
But  while  his  gentleness  and  patience  under  suffering  won 
the  hearts  of  the  rector  and  professors,  their  devoted  care 
of  him  made  a  deep  impression  on  the  little  sufferer.  The 
vacations  spent  at  Carpineto  beneath  his  mother's  eye,  and 
the  thousand  soothing  and  strengthening  influences  of  ma- 
ternal love,  restored  the  invalid  to  health,  but  he  never 
afterward  enjoyed  the  physical  vigor  of  his  early  boyhood. 

This  was,  indeed,  the  sweetest  season  of  life  for  Vincent 
Pecci  and  his  brother.  The  countess  lived  most  of  her 
time  in  Rome,  so  as  to  be  nearer  to  her  sons  while  indulg- 
ing her  own  pious  tastes.  Her  frequent  letters  to  them 
continued  to  foster  in  their  souls  the  home-virtues  she  had 
planted  there.  She  delighted  in 'their  progress,  and  took 
comfort  from  the  frequent  accounts  received  from  the  col- 
lege of  their  good  conduct  and  proficiency.  Thus  did  she 
endeavor  to  find  some  compensation  for  the  sacrifice  made 
in  sending  them  away  from  home  at  an  age  when  boys  most 

*  In  our  MS.  is  the  following  Latin  epigram  composed  by  Vincent 
Pecci  for  the  Provincial  : 

"  Nomine  Vincenti,  quo  tu,  Pavane,  vocarts, 

Parvulus  atque  in  fans  Peccius  ipse  vocor. 
Quas  es  virtutes  magnas,  Pavane,  secmas. 
Oh  !  utinam  possem  Peccius  ipse  sequi ! " 


56  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

need  a  mother's  eye  and  hand  and  heart,  and  when  boys 
can  be  to  a  mother  a  source  of  unspeakable  joy. 

To  be  sure  the  sons  and  daughters  who  remained  at 
Carpineto  were,  with  the  exception  of  Ferdinando,  the 
youngest,  a  great  comfort  to  the  countess.  Her  daughters 
were  now  her  companions,  associated  with  her  in  all  her 
good  works  and  charities.  But  the  anxious,  motherly  heart 
would  busy  itself  principally  about  the  two  boys  far  away 
in  Viterbo.  She  had  now  no  fears  about  their  moral  con- 
duct ;  they  were  both  most  exemplary,  and  the  piety  of 
both  was  solidly  grounded  in  a  thorough  knowledge  of  the 
truths  and  duties  of  religion,  superadded  to  the  principles 
instilled  into  their  minds  by  their  mother's  early  culture. 

One  feature  in  her  training  of  them  at  Carpineto  was 
the  deep  reverence  which  her  example  taught  them  for 
the  much-persecuted  Franciscan  monks  of  the  neighbor- 
ing monastery.  These  belonged  to  the  strictly  reformed 
branch  of  the  great  family  of  St.  Francis,  whom  St.  Bernar- 
dine  of  Siena,  St.  Peter  Alcantara,  St.  John  Capistrano,  St. 
Leonard  of  Port  Maurice,  and  so  many  other  divine  men 
taught  to  walk  firmly  and  fervently  in  the  arduous  path  of 
poverty  and  self-sacrifice  trodden  by  the  pierced  and  bleed- 
ing feet  of  St.  Francis  himself.  The  Franciscan  monastery 
at  Carpineto  did  not  escape  the  vandalism  of  the  first 
French  invasion  in  1797-98.  The  officers  and  soldiery  of 
the  Revolutionary  armies  everywhere  displayed  a  peculiar 
animosity  against  the  houses  and  brethren  of  that  Order. 
The  old  Roman  nobility  were  treated  little  better  than 
the  monks  and  priests ;  so  the  Aldobrandini  were  power- 
less to  prevent  the  acts  of  spoliation  and  cruelty  exercised 
toward  the  inmates  of  an  establishment  they  were  bound 
to  protect.  When  Pius  VI  I.  was  restored,  and  the  religious 
communities  suppressed  and  dispersed  by  Napoleon  were 
allowed  to  return  to  their  former  homes,  they  had  a  hard 
struggle  to  face.  Even  when  allowed  to  take  possession  of 
their  monasteries — which  was  far  from  always  being  the 
case — they  found  their  revenues  confiscated.  They  had 
to  depend  on  the  charity  of  the  surrounding  impoverished 


COUNTESS  PECCI  AND  THE  THIRD  ORDER.  57 

populations  for  their  daily  bread  ;  they  had  not  unfre- 
quently  to  look  to  the  generosity  of  old  friends  to  build 
up  anew  and  to  render  habitable  the  religious  homes  pulled 
down  or  wantonly  wrecked  by  their  temporary  masters. 

The  Countess  Pecci  and  her  husband  were  not  backward 
in  giving  a  helping  hand  to  the  brown-coated  and  bare- 
footed Observantines.  The  people  of  the  mountainous 
districts  of  Italy  have  always  cherished  a  warm  and  grateful 
affection  for  these  sons  of  St.  Francis,  who  were  to  them 
not  only  models  of  the  most  sublime  Christian  virtue,  but 
benefactors,  supporters,  comforters  in  seasons  of  distress 
and  illness.  The  monastery  always  shared  with  the  needy 
poor  the  bread  its  brethren  had  begged  in  the  neighbor- 
hood ;  there  was  always  a  dispensary  where  the  sick  got 
gratuitous  advice,  medicine,  and  care ;  and  the  brother- 
physician  or  surgeon,  or  dispensarian,  visited  the  bed-rid- 
den in  their  cottages,  and  brought  with  them  ever  balm 
and  healing  for  the  spirit,  even  when  their  drugs  or  simples 
availed  not  to  restore  health  to  the  body. 

And  the  Third  Order  of  St.  Francis,  embracing  men 
and  women  of  every  rank  and  profession  living  in  the 
world,  communicated  to  its  members  the  most  precious 
spiritual  advantages  of  brotherhood  with  the  Order,  on 
condition  of  leading,  in  each  one's  respective  sphere  of 
duty,  a  life  in  conformity  with  the  precepts  of  the  Gospel, 
a  life  of  ever-helpful  charity  to  the  neighbor  for  the  dear 
love  of  the  Father  of  all.  This  formed  a  close  bond  of 
union  between  every  home  in  the  district,  whether  that  of 
the  prince  or  of  the  peasant,  and  the  Franciscan  monas- 
tery.* 

*  The  Third  Order  of  St.  Francis,  which  spread  so  rapidly  over  all 
Europe  and  embraced  persons  of  both  sexes  and  of  every  rank  and  condi- 
tion, counted  within  the  lifetime  of  St.  Francis  upwards  of  500,000  mem- 
bers living  in  the  world,  only  in  a  most  exemplary  manner.  In  our  times 
many  pious  Catholic  men  and  women  join  it,  because  it  is  especially  in- 
tended for  them.  The  rule  does  not  bind  them  to  take  a  vow  of  poverty  ; 
it  only  enjoins  the  practice  of  works  of  charity,  daily  prayer,  a  regular 
performance  of  church  duties,  confession  and  communion,  and,  in  their 
daily  lives,  bids  them  to  refrain  from  excess  or  indulgence  in  the  pomps- 


58  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

The  Countess  Anna  was  a  member  of  the  Third  Order, 
and  her  example  inspired  all  others  to  join  it,  and  thereby 
to  pledge  themselves  to  a  faithful  observance  of  all  the 
duties  of  Christian  manhood  and  womanhood.  She  was 
most  punctual  in  her  attendance  at  the  meetings  held  in 
the  monastery  chapel  for  purposes  of  devotion  or  charity. 
And  she  loved  to  bring  her  children  with  her.  Thus  did 
the  little  Vincent  become  from  his  earliest  years  familiar 
with  the  brown  habit  and  sandalled  feet  of  the  sons  of  St. 
Francis  of  Assisi.  From  his  mother's  lips  he  heard  the 
story  of  the  gentle  saint's  wonderful  and  beneficent  life, 
told  in  the  simple  way  in  which  true  mothers  can  tell  such 
stories  of  Godlike  virtue  and  generosity.  And  the  outlines 
of  that  life  remained  imprinted  on  the  bright  child's  mem- 
ory, till  in  after-years  he  could  fill  in  every  detail  from  his 
own  careful  studies.  At  any  rate,  the  example  of  both  his 
parents,  the  ardent  and  active  piety  of  his  mother,  and, 
later  on,  of  his  two  sisters,  but  in  particular  his  familiar 
acquaintance  with  the  humble,  self-denying  Observantines, 
the  air  of  poverty  and  purity  which  reigned  in  their  church, 
that  "  beauty  of  holiness  "  which  encircled  like  a  halo  the 
men  and  the  place,  stamped  on  the  boy's  soul  such  impres- 
sions of  living  faith  and  piety  as  nothing  ever  afterward 
could  weaken. 

The  year  1823  passed  away  at  Viterbo  with  the  same 
uniformity  of  application  and  uncommon  literary  success 
for  Vincent  Pecci.  He  was  already  in  the  higher  Humani- 
ties courses,  in  which  he  was  introduced  to  all  the  chief 
masterpieces  of  composition  in  his  own  native  Italian,  as 
well  as  in  the  classic  Latin  and  Greek.  He  revelled  in 
these  studies,  for  which  he  seemed  to  have  an  uncommon 

and  vanities  of  the  world.  It  is  a  holy  conspiracy  or  brotherhood,  in 
which  the  members  help  each  other  by  word  and  example  to  live  up,  in  the 
ordinary  walks  of  life,  to  the  precepts  and  spirit  of  the  Gospel  ;  the  great 
and  the  rich  restraining  themselves  from  a  wrong  use  of  their  wealth,  and 
using  it  generously  to  help  the  needy  and  ta  encourage  the  industry  of  the 
laboring  poor. 

It  was  the  Christian  communism  revived  by  St.  Francis  in  the  thir- 
teenth century,  and  which  we  shall  see  Leo  XIII.  endeavoring  to  restore. 


DEATH  OF  THE  COUNTESS  PECCI.  59 

.aptitude.  His  masters — the  very  best  classic  scholars 
whom  the  Society  of  Jesus  had  in  the  Peninsula — knowing 
what  precious  material  they  had  in  Vincent  Pecci,  took 
especial  pains  to  form  and  perfect  his  taste.  He  only 
needed  guidance  and  moderation.  A  disposition  like  his 
required  no  artificial  stimulus  to  make  him  keep  up  with 
the  most  advanced  or  outstrip  them.* 

The  vacations  of  1823  were  again  spent  on  the  sunny 
heights  of  Carpineto,  the  boys  and  their  brothers  taking 
long  draughts  of  the  bliss  of  home-life  by  the  side  of  such 
a  mother  as  Anna  Pecci  was.  They  were  now,  respective- 
ly, Joseph  in  his  seventeenth  year  and  Vincent  in  his  four- 
teenth. It  was  for  them  the  very  springtide  of  existence, 
the  blossoming  of  the  soul  into  all  the  beautiful  promise  of 
a  future  carefully  prepared  for  both  by  the  culture  of  their 
parents  and  by  the  conscientious  labor  of  the  masters 
they  had  chosen  for  their  sons. 

From  the  healthy  amusements  and  recreations  of  Car- 
pineto the  proud  mother  sent  them  once  more  back  to 
Viterbo.  She  was  never  again  to  gather  them  round  her 
in  that  home  which  she  had  made  to  them  a  paradise. 

A  fatal  sickness  had  seized  upon  her,  and  her  husband, 
at  the  first  serious  symptoms  of  danger,  decided  that  they 
should  go  to  Rome,  so  as  to  be  within  reach  of  the  best 
medical  skill.  But  the  ripest  medical  science  in  Rome 
-could  not  arrest  the  progress  of  the  disease.  In  the  prime 
of  life  the  adored  wife  and  mother  felt  that  she  must  leave 
husband  and  children  when  she  was  most  needed  by  them. 

*In  the  United  States  very  many  among  both  clergy  and  laity  will 
remember  some  of  Vincent  Pecci's  schoolmates  at  Viterbo,  and  later  at 
the  Roman  College.  The  venerable  Father  Tellier,  S.J.,  who  died  not 
many  years  ago  in  Montreal,  Superior-General  of  the  Mission  in  Canada, 
was,  by  his  exquisite  taste  and  the  finished  literary  excellence  of  all  his 
compositions,  a  not  unworthy  rival  of  him  who  was  destined  to  produce 
the  Encyclical  Immortale  Dei  Another  classmate  was  the  V.  Rev.  Wm.  S. 
Murphy,  whose  memory  still  lives  in  New  York,  New  Orleans,  and  St. 
Louis.  A  third  was  the  Rev.  Paul  Mignard,  S.J.,  of  St.  Xavier's,  New 
York.  These  men  never  ceased  praising  the  enthusiastic  love  of  study 
"with  which  such  masters  inspired  them. 


6O  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

It  was  then  that  her  deep  faith  and  enlightened  piety  stood 
her  in  good  stead.  She  had  too  long  studied  to  make  her 
own  will  conform  in  all  things  with  the  Divine  not  to  ac- 
cept the  sentence  of  her  physicians  with  perfect  submission. 
She  had  all  her  life  sought  too  earnestly  spiritual  strength 
and  comfort  in  their  true  source  not  to  find  them  in  abun- 
dance in  her  supreme  need.  Her  sons  were  sent  for,  and 
hastened  to  the  bedside  of  their  dying  parent.  What  both 
Joseph  and  Vincent  there  saw  and  heard  made  on  such 
minds  as  theirs  indelible  impressions,  and  gave  to  their 
course  in  life  a  direction  which  they,  perhaps,  did  not 
then  appreciate.  The  mother's  heart  yearned  for  her 
little  Ferdinand,  then  in  his  eighth  year.  But  he  would 
soon  follow  her. 

Her  last  looks  rested  on  the  circle  of  her  loved  ones* 
faces.  She  died,  as  die  all  who  live  for  home  and  duty,- 
for  God  and  neighbor,  blessed  of  God  and  men.  Her  body 
was  arrayed  in  the  brown  habit  and  cord  of  the  Francis- 
can Tertiaries,  and  by  them  taken  to  the  Observantine 
Church  of  the  Forty  Martyrs  (SS.  Quaranta  Martiri),  where 
she  was  buried  amid  the  tears  and  prayers  of  her  family,  of 
the  poor  of  Rome,  who  had  learned  to  love  her.  Her  hus- 
band and  children  were  inconsolable  ;  the  three  youngest 
were  old  enough  to  estimate  the  greatness  of  their  irre- 
parable loss.  To  Vincent,  whose  life  we  are  especially 
busied  with,  this  church  and  its  treasure  have  never  ceased 
to  be  a  thing  most  sacred  and  most  dear.  We  shall,  in  a 
future  chapter,  relate  the  special  care  bestowed  by  him  on 
this  sanctuary,  which  is  the  birthplace  and  the  centre  of 
activity  of  one  of  the  most  admirable  Confraternities  of 
Rome  dedicated  to  works  of  enlightened  charity. 

The  affectionate  heart  of  the  thoughtful  and  gentle 
youth  yearned  long  for  her  who  had  left  her  own  image 
on  his  features,  his  heart,  and  his  life.  People  have  re- 
lated to  us  in  Rome  touching  anecdotes  of  the  tenderness 
with  which,  in  his  now  venerable  old  age  and  exalted  posi- 
tion, he  paints  to  children  presented  to  him  the  unspeak- 
able privilege  of  possessing  a  mother's  love  and  care,  and 


62  LIFE  OF  LEO  AY//. 

insists  on  the  fulfilment  of  the  sacred  duties  of  filial  piety. 
His  voice  then  assumes  an  accent  of  special  tenderness, 
and  his  delicate,  transparent  features  are  overspread  with 
a  special  light. 

Even  as  we  write  this  our  soul  is  still  moved  after 
seeing  the  Pope,  in  his  seventy-seventh  year,  surrounded 
in  early  morning  by  families — parents  and  children  from 
different  lands  far  asunder — kneeling  around  him,  while 
that  great,  fatherly  heart  of  his  went  out  in  looks  and 
words  of  love  to  those  who  are  truly  every  one  his  own, 
confided  to  him  by  Christ. 

It  is  an  education  in  itself  to  follow  the  progress  of  such 
a  beautiful  life. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

JOACHIM  VINCENT  PECCI    FORMS  THE    ACQUAINTANCE  OF 
LEO   XII. — 1825. 

HILE  the  Countess  Pecci,  in  the  last  days  of  her 
life,  was  made  happy  by  what  she  knew  herself 
and  heard  from  others  of  the  love  of  her  sons  for  all  that 
should  excite  the  noblest  ambition  of  youth,  the  saintly,, 
meek,  and  much-tried  spirit  of  Pius  VII.  passed  to  its 
everlasting  rest.  In  his  place  was  elected  Cardinal  Anni- 
bale  della  Genga,  who  took  the  name  of  Leo  XII.,  and  who 
set  himself,  from  the  very  beginning  of  his  reign,  to  com- 
plete the  work  of  reconstruction  inaugurated  by  his  prede- 
cessor. The  new  Pontiff  had  a  perfect  consciousness  of  the 
spirit  and  tendencies  of  the  nineteenth  century,  of  the  dis- 
order fallen  upon  the  States  of  the  Church  during  the  long, 
sad  years  which  closed  with  the  life  of  his  predecessor,  and 
of  the  manifold  and  urgent  needs  in  the  Church  itself, 
which  claimed  all  the  zeal  of  a  saint  and  the  authorita- 
tive energy  of  the  Supreme  Pastor. 

Leo  XII.  displayed  both  the  one  and  the  other  during 
his  all  too  brief  Pontificate.  Feeling  that  the  enemies  of 
religion  and  society  were  using  education  as  a  mighty  and 
most  effective  force  to  dechristianize  Europe  and  the  world, 
Leo  applied  himself  to  collect  around  him  in  Rome  the 
most  accomplished  educators.  Italy,  he  thought,  ought, 
by  the  superior  culture  and  the  superior  virtues  of  its 
inhabitants,  to  set  the  example  to  the  rest  of  the  civil- 
ized world. ,  Rome,  being  the  centre  of  Catholicity,  the 
seat  of  the  great  teaching  and  governing  authority  in  the 
Church,  should  be  like  an  unfailing  light  set  on  high  and 

63 


64  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

shedding  its  radiance  abroad  through  the  whole  earth,  like 
the  fountain-head  and  source  of  the  waters  of  life  for  all 
humanity,  ever  gushing  and  ever  pure.  In  Rome,  grouped 
around  the  Shrine  of  the  Holy  Apostles,  were  the  givat 
nurseries  of  the  apostolic  and  missionary  spirit,  to  which 
all  heathen  lands  looked  for  the  men  who  were  to  evangel- 
ize them.  There  were  the  splendid  seminaries  of  learning, 
in  which  the  twin  lamps  of  sacred  and  secular  knowledge 
had  been  ever  fed  by  the  Sovereign  Pontiffs  from  out  the 
revenues  of  their  narrow  principality.  There  resided  the 
various  and  admirable  administrative  bodies  who  were  the 
Pope's  efficient  instruments  in  governing  the  Church  Uni- 
versal. 

Papal  Rome  and  the  Papal  States  had  thus  the  honor  of 
being,  in  the  designs  of  that  Providence  whose  course  the 
Christian  historian  marks  all  through  the  events  of  the  last 
two  thousand  years,  the  country  and  the  people  set  apart  by 
Him  to  help  Him  in  making  Christians  of  all  the  tribes  of 
«arth,  and  in  binding  all  men  in  the  sweet  chains  of  one 
common  brotherhood.  The  glorious  and  exceptional  prero- 
gative bestowed  of  old  on  Palestine  and  its  chosen  people 
was  transferred,  in  the  Christian  Dispensation,  to  Italy  and 
the  Roman  State ;  they  were  to  be  the  great  agency,  un- 
der God,  for  Christianizing,  civilizing,  and  uniting  the  en- 
tire human  family. 

Napoleon's  genius  clearly  perceived  this  truth,  and  his 
blind  ambition  impelled  him  to  endeavor  to  transfer  from 
Rome  to  Paris,  with  the  seat  of  the  Sovereign  Pontificate, 
that  of  this  unique  and  universal  moral  power,  more  far- 
reaching  than  his  imperial  sway.  But  God,  who  will  move 
the  foundations  of  the  earth  in  order  to  give  freedom  to 
His  Church,  independence  to  His  Vicar,  caused  the  Napo- 
leonic Empire  suddenly  to  fall  and  vanish  like  a  splendid 
dream,  and  Pius  VI L  returned  to  his  people. 

So  must  it  befall,  sooner  or  later,  any  earthly  power 
which  attempts  to  incorporate  with  its  dominions  the 
principality  created  by  Providence  and  the  accord  of 
Christian  nations  to  secure  to  the  Papacy  not  only  per- 


VINCENT  PECCI  A  T  THE  ROMAN  COLLEGE.  65 

feet  freedom  in  the  discharge  of  its  divinely  appointed 
office,  but  the  indispensable  means  for  fulfilling  it. 

Leo  XII.,  who  had  borne  his  part  in  the  sufferings  and 
sorrows  of  the  seventh  Pius,  threw  his  whole  energy  into 
reorganizing  perfectly  every  part  of  the  vast  administra- 
tion of  the  ecclesiastical  government,  and  restoring  perfect 
order,  discipline,  and  observance  in  the  great  monastic 
bodies,  and  in  creating  schools  of  every  grade,  such  as  were 
needed  by  Christian  Rome  in  presence  of  new  circum- 
stances, new  ideas,  and  the  new  and  irresistible  tendencies 
of  the  age. 

The  College  of  Viterbo  was  too  far  away  from  Rome, 
where  it  was  the  wise  policy  of  the  Popes  to  open  great 
central  schools  accessible  not  only  to  the  young  students 
of  the  great  Religious  Orders,  but  to  those  of  the  various 
national  colleges  sent  to  the  Eternal  City  to  learn  the 
sacred  sciences  within  the  shadow  of  the  Vatican,  and  to 
all  the  Roman  youth  of  every  class,  whose  education  was 
the  special  care  of  the  bishop  and  clergy  of  Rome. 

Leo  XII.,  in  the  year  1824,  restored  the  famous  Col- 
legio  Romano  to  the  Jesuits.  Few  indeed  as  were  the  men 
who  had  survived  the  long  period  of  dispersion,  exile, 
poverty,  and  proscription  consequent  upon  the  suppression 
of  the  Society  by  the  Bourbons,  their  spirit  had  passed 
into  the  noble  band  nursed  among  the  snows  of  Russia ; 
and  the  young  men  who  flocked  to  the  Jesuit  novitiates 
after  the  restoration- of  the  Society  allowed  themselves  to 
be  moulded  to  the  same  heroic  generosity  and  lofty  intel- 
lectual ideas  which  had  characterized,  in  their  long  and 
cruel  trial,  the  dispersed  sons  of  St.  Ignatius. 

When,  in  the  autumn  of  1825,  the  Roman  College 
solemnly  inaugurated  its  courses  of  ecclesiastical  and  secu- 
lar teaching,  its  halls  were  at  once  filled  by  fourteen  hun- 
dred students.  Among  these  was  Vincent  Pecci.  His 
brother  Joseph,  impressed  by  his  mother's  death,  and  at- 
tracted by  the  lofty  ideals  of  self-sacrificing  virtue  and  zeal 
in  the  divine  service  followed  by  his  Jesuit  masters,  had, 
with  his  father's  consent,  cast  his  lot  with  them.  The 


66  LIFE  OF  LEO  Xlll. 

younger  brother,  reserved  providentially  for  even  a  higher 
destiny,  gave  himself  up  to  his  ardor  for  study,  his  enthu- 
siasm being  constantly  fed  not  only  by  the  genius  and 
methods  of  his  masters,  but  by  the  emulation  they  knew 
so  well  how  to  maintain  among  their  pupils  of  every  de- 
gree. The  taste  for  literary  excellence  developed  at  Vi- 
terbo  by  the  illustrious  Father  Lionardo  Giribaldi  was  still 
further  cultivated  and  matured  by  such  renowned  men  as 
Fathers  Ferdinando  Minini  and  Joseph  Bonvicini.  Under 
them  he  completed  what  may  be  considered  the  middle 
collegiate  course  in  the  Jesuit  system — Humanities  and 
Rhetoric.* 

That,  in  these  very  years,  the  lad  of  fourteen  was  ear- 
nestly endeavoring  to  grasp  the  full  significance  of  the 
political,  social,  and  religious  changes  occurring  on  every 
side,  we  have  an  indication  in  a  Latin  oration  which  he 
was  chosen  to  deliver  before  the  assembled  students  and 
faculty  at  the  end  of  his  year  of  Rhetoric.  Vincenzo  Pecci 
(as  he  continued  to  be  called  by  his  school-fellows)  had 
taken  for  his  subject,  "  Pagan  Rome  as  compared  with 
Christian  Rome,"  and  pointedly  referred  to  the  moral  and 
unbloody  triumph  of  the  Holy  See,  in  the  person  of  Pius 
VII.,  over  the  brute-violence  of  Napoleon's  military  despot- 
ism. The  honor  of  delivering  this  oration  was  due  to  the 
fact  of  the  young  speaker's  having  won  the  prize  of  excel- 
lence in  Latin  prose-composition. 

More  remarkable  still  was  his  success  in  Latin  verse. 
The  rule  for  all  who  contended  here  for  the  prize  of  excel- 
lence was  that  they  should  within  the  space  of  six  hours, 
and  without  any  external  aid  whatever,  write  a  certain 

"The  first  or  lower  course  in  Jesuit  colleges,  according  to  Acqua- 
viva's  "Ratio  Studiorum."  consists  of  the  infima,  media,  and  snfrema 
Grammalica,  or  first,  second,  and  third  Grammar  classes  or  forms.  Then 
come  the  two  classes  of  Humanities  and  Rhetoric,  equivalent  to  the  Sopho- 
more Course  in  American  colleges.  To  the  Undergraduate  Course  among 
us  corresponds  their  Philosophy  Course,  which  lasts  three  years,  and  com- 
prises, besides  Logic,  Metaphysics,  and  Ethics,  a  course  of  pure  and  ap- 
plied Mathematics,  Physics,  Chemistry,  Natural  History,  Geology,  Bio- 
Jojry,  etc. 


WINNING  ACADEMIC  HONORS.  67 

number  of  Latin  hexameters  on  a  specified  subject.  This 
subject  happened  to  be  the  Feast  of  Belshazzar.  Young 
Pecci  produced  one  hundred  and  twenty  verses  of  such 
unquestionable  excellence  that  the  prize  was  unanimously 
awarded  to  him  by  the  judges.  This,  however,  was  not 
his  only  success :  to  him  were  also  awarded  the  first  lioil 
ors  in  Greek. 

Thus  was  crowned,  while  he  was  yet  only  at  the  begin 
ning  of  his  Undergraduate  Course,  the  uncommon  ardoi 
with  which  young  Pecci  had  given  himself  up  to  the 
cultivation  of  the  classical  literatures  of  Greece  and 
Rome.  The  fine  taste  thereby  developed  only  made  him 
more  ambitious  to  acquire  a  perfect  mastery  of  his  own 
native  Italian.  We  shall  have  occasion  further  on  to 
show  that  his  efforts  here  were  rewarded  with  no  less  suc- 
cess. 

The  masterpieces  of  these  ancient  classic  literatures 
must  ever  be,  so  long  as  civilization  lasts,  the  most  per- 
fect models  of  literary  composition,  of  the  most  beautiful 
thoughts  clothed  in  language  the  most  beautiful.  To 
public,  professional  men  of  every  class,  whose  great  instru- 
ment of  action  and  influence  is  human  speech,  oral  and 
written,  a  perfect  mastery  over  the  resources  of  one's  own 
native  tongue  is  indrspensable.  And  experience  has  de- 
monstrated that,  in  our  own  days  as  in  the  past,  the  men 
who  in  Church  and  state  are  the  leaders  of  their  fellow-men 
—like  a  Newman,  a  Gladstone,  a  Leo  XIII. — are  men  who 
have  most  assiduously  and  successfully  cultivated  classic 
antiquity. 

These  academic  honors  were  won  at  the  end  of  the 
college  sessions  of  1825.  The  more  serious  studies  and 
less  inviting  subjects  comprised  in  the  curriculum  of  phi- 
losophy often  prove  a  source  of  failure  to  young  men  who 
have  distinguished  themselves  in  the  pursuit  of  mere  lite- 
rature. But  where  imagination  and  intellect  are  equally 
balanced  and  harmoniously  developed,  there  is  no  reason 
why  great  success  in  the  culture  of  letters  should  not  be 
followed  by  equal  success  in  philosophy  and  the  sciences. 


68  LIFE  OF  LEO  XI U. 

Vincent  Pecci  proved  that    his   faculties  were  so   happily 
balanced  and  cultivated. 

In  the  printed  list  of  prizes  distributed  in  the  Collegio 
Romano  at  the  end  of  the  scholar-year  1828  our  Pecci's 
name  is  mentioned  for  the  first  prize  in  Physics  and  Chem- 
istry, and  for  the  first  accessit  for  mathematical  physics. 
And,  in  connection  with  this  creditable  fact,  it  should  be 
mentioned  here  that  among  the  Faculty  of  Science  in  the 
Roman  College  at  that  time  were  such  men  as  John  Baptist 
Pianciani  and  Andrea  Carafa,  scientists  of  European  fame. 
For  a  brief  space,  in  1848-49,  the  United  States  possessed, 
together  with  the  illustrious  Pianciani,  such  of  his  exiled 
brother-professors  as  the  astronomers  De  Vico  and  Sec- 
chi.  The  government  of  Washington,  well  aware  of  the 
merit  of  the  great  scholars  whom  Mazzini  and  Garibaldi 
would  not  tolerate  in  Rome,  vainly  endeavored  to  se- 
cure their  services  for  the  observatory  of  the  Federal 
capital,  while  the  British  government  were  equally  anxious 
to  place  under  their  direction  the  observatory  of  Calcut- 
ta. Father  de  Vico,  returning  temporarily  to  London, 
caught  typhus-fever  from  a  poor  Irish  emigrant  to  whom 
he  ministered  on  shipboard,  and  died  a  victim  to  his  char- 
ity. Secchi  lived  to  create  the  science  of  solar  physics ; 
to  become,  in  spite  of  the  disfavor  attaching  to  the  name 
of  Jesuit,  a  foremost  authority  in  the  highest  walks  of 
science ;  and  to  see,  before  his  death,  his  brethren  driven 
pitilessly  forth  from  the  great  University  School,*  which 
had  so  long  been  one  of  the  glories  of  Italy,  the  nur- 
sery of  great  Popes,  great  scholars,  and  great  Christian 
men. 

The  success  which  rewarded  Pecci's  application  to 
philosophy  and  science  at  the  end  of  1828  increased 
all  through  the  next  year.  His  acknowledged  superior- 
ity to  his  fellow-students  caused  him  to  be  selected,  at 
the  close  of  the  curriculum,  to  defend  against  all  objec- 
tors, and  in  the  most  public  manner,  theses  so  chosen 

*  The  Collegio  Romano  was  also  called  the  Gregorian  University,  from 
Gregory  XIII.,  who  erected  the  present  magnificent  building. 


A  GREAT  DISAPPOINTMENT.  69 

from  the  subject-matter  of  the  three  years'  teaching  that 
they  would  in  reality  embrace  the  entire  field  of  philo- 
sophy. 

This  was  the  highest  distinction  that  could,  at  that 
stage  of  his  university  career,  be  conferred  upon  the 
young  student,  then  in  his  twentieth  year.  Such  pub- 
lic disputations  on  philosophy,  canon  law,  theology,  etc., 
have  always  been  held  in  high  honor  in  Rome.  They 
were  characteristic  of  the  mediaeval  universities,  and 
were  adopted  by  the  Jesuits  in  their  great  schools  as 
one  of  the  most  powerful  stimulants  to  the  pursuit 
of  excellence  in  every  department  of  human  learning. 
These  solemn  academical  tournaments,  which  were  fre- 
quented by  the  elite  of  Roman  society,  and  in  which 
the  most  learned  men  and  the  highest  dignitaries,  even 
cardinals  themselves,  entered  the  lists,  were  often  graced 
by  the  presence  of  the  Papal  Court.  It  required  both 
uncommon  ability  and  uncommon  nerve  in  a  young  man 
to  face  such  an  audience,  and  to  reply,  during  six  en- 
tire hours,  to  the  most  formidable  and  unforeseen  objec- 
tions, urged,  too,  by  men  thoroughly  versed  in  the  dia- 
lectic art. 

Our  young  philosopher  threw  himself  into  the  work  of 
preparation  with  his  habitual  ardor — with  too  much  ardor, 
indeed ;  for  he  had  never  quite  got  over  the  effects  of  the 
gastric  fever  which  had  brought  him  to  death's  door  at 
Viterbo.  The  mental  excitement  and  fatigue  consequent 
on  overwork  were  soon  visible.  The  family  physicians 
would  not  hear  of  his  exposing  himself  to  the  public  or- 
deal that  awaited  him.  His  masters,  however,  who  were 
perfectly  aware  of  his  thorough  mastery  of  the  subject- 
matters  to  be  discussed,  had  to  acquiesce  reluctantly  in 
the  decision  of  the  physicians.  Still,  they  were  unwilling 
that  one  who,  in  the  judgment  of  students  and  faculty, 
was  pre-eminently  distinguished  for  talent  and  proficiency, 
should  be  deprived,  by  the  accident  of  illness,  of  all  the 
honor  he  so  well  deserved.  The  Faculty  decreed  that  a 
solemn  attestation  of  Feed's  worth  in  connection  with  the 


70  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

proposed  academical  solemnity  should  be  drawn  up  and 
given  to  him.* 

One  of  his  schoolmates  in  Viterbo  and  in  Rome  wrote 
in  February,  1878,  immediately  after  the  election  of  Leo 
XIII.: 

"  I  can  bear  witness  to  the  fact  that  while  yet  at  Viter- 
bo he  won  our  admiration  not  only  by  his  quick  intelli- 
gence, but  still  more  by  the  singular  purity  of  his  life.  Dur- 
ing our  Humanities  course  we  were  rivals,  and  there  each 
time  I  saw  him  he  impressed  me  as  being  all  life  and  intel- 
lect. All  through  his  studies  in  Rome  he  never  sought 
social  gatherings,  conversazioni,  diversions,  or  games.  II  is 
work-table  was  his  world ;  it  was  paradise  to  him  to  be 
plunged  in  the  study  of  science.  From  his  twelfth  and 
thirteenth  years  upwards  he  wrote  Latin  prose  and  verse 

*  Here  is  the  document  in  question,  still  carefully  preserved  by  the 
Pecci  family  : 

"COLLEGIUM  ROMANUM  SOCIETATIS  JESU. 

"  Fidem  facimus  praestantem  juvenem  Joachinum  Vincentium  Pecci 
per  triennium  in  hoc  Athenaeo  Gregoriano  philosophise  studio  vacasse,  in 
eoque  adeo  profecisse  ut  judicio  Doctorum  Decuiialium  dignus  habitus 
sit,  qui  de  selectis  ex  universa  Philosophia  thesibus,  labente  anno  scholas- 
tico  1829,  publice  disputaret.  Cum  vero  id  perficcre  ab  infirma  valetu- 
dine  fuerit  prohibitus,  rem  ipsam  nostris  hisce  literis  tcstatum  volumus, 
atque  optima  spei  adolesccntem  promcrita  laude  et  elogio  proscquimur. 

"  Datum  in  Collegia  Romano,  30  Xbri,  1830. 

"  FRANCISCUS  MANERA,  S.J., 

1 '  Prtffcctus  Studiorum . ' ' 

"  ROMAN  COLLEGE  OF  THE  SOCIETY  OF  JESUS. 

"  We  hereby  attest  that  the  distinguished  young  gentleman,  Joachim 
Vincent  Pecci,  has  studied  philosophy  in  this  Gregorian  University  during 
three  years,  and  that  his  proficiency  therein  was  such  that,  in  the  ju<l^ 
ment  of  the  Faculty,  he  was  chosen  as  fit  to  maintain  a  public  disputation 
on  a  selection  of  theses  from  the  entire  philosophical  curriculum  at  the 
close  of  the  year  1829.  But  inasmuch  as  he  has  been  prevented  by  illness 
from  so  doing,  we  desire  to  bear  witness  to  the  fact  itself  by  this  written 
attestation,  and  bestow  on  a  youth  of  such  excellent  promise  the  honor  and 
praise  he  deserves. 

"  Given  in  tfx  Roman  College,  October  30,  1830. 

"  FRANCIS  MANERA,  S.J., 

"  Prefect  of  Studies." 


THE  JUBILEE  OF  1825.  J I 

with  a  facility  and  an  elegance  that  were  wonderful  in 
one  so  young."  * 

During  his  university  studies  Joachim  Pecci  resided 
with  his  uncle  Antonio  in  the  Muti  Palace.  He  seems 
to  have  been  singularly  drawn  to  Pope  Leo  XII.,  whose  life 
closed  in  1829,  just  as  Pecci  was  terminating  his  philoso- 
phical studies.  In  1825  the  Holy  Father  proclaimed  a 
Jubilee  for  the  entire  Christian  world.  The  last  had 
been  in  1800,  just  after  Pius  VI.  had  died,  exiled  and 
imprisoned,  at  Valence,  in  France,  and  when  Pius  VII., 
elected  under  the  protection  of  the  Russian  flag,  was  be- 
ginning his  long  martyrdom.  Much  had  been  done  during 
these  twenty-five  eventful  years  to  blot  out  from  the  souls 
of  the  Latin  peoples,  with  the  veneration  for  the  religion  of 
their  ancestors,  the  belief  in  the  divinity  of  Christ  and  the 
very  notion  of  a  Godhead.  Could  Leo  XII.  stir  what  had 
once  been  a  united  Christendom  by  the  proclamation  of  a 
Jubilee?  And  would  pilgrims  from  every  Christian  land 
be  seen  to  come,  at  the  Pontiff's  call,  to  kneel  once  more 
at  the  shrines  of  the  Apostles?  Such  questions  did  grave 
men  ask  each  other  as  they  surveyed  the  wide-spread  wreck 
around  them  and  listened  to  the  sneers  of  the  sceptic 
press,  which  were  only  the  echo  of  the  old  Voltairean- 
ism. 

Leo  XII. 's  prophetic  soul  was  deeply  moved  and  com- 
forted by  the  sight  of  the  throngs  of  pilgrims,  the  very 
elite  of  Christian  countries,  who  filled  Rome  and  consoled 
the  Vicar  of  Christ  for  half  a  century  of  persecution,  de- 
struction, and  blasphemy.  He  himself  gave  the  example 
of  unaffected  piety  by  visiting  the  privileged  churches  of 
Rome,  and  joining  his  own  people  and  the  pilgrims  of 
every  land  in  supplicating  the  divine  mercy  in  the  sore 
need  of  the  Christian  world.  He  also  saw  to  it  in  person 
that  the  preparations  he  had  ordered  to  be  made  for  the 
reception  of  the  multitudes  of  strangers  were  carried  out  in 
the  proper  spirit.  Men  who  bore  a  part  in  these  proceed- 

*  Letter  written  in   February,  1878,  to  Father  Ballerini,  editor  of  the 
Cattolica,  and  quoted  in  the  "  Cenni  Storici,"  c.  i.  v    "J, 


72  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

ings  have  put  on  record  their  testimony  to  the  living  piety 
and  indefatigable  charity  of  the  nobles,  clergy,  and  people 
of  Rome,  animated  by  the  person  and  examples  of  their 
saint  like  Pontiff. 

These  were  days  which  made  on  the  young  and  pure 
soul  of  Joachim  Vincent  Pecci  impressions  which  shaped 
the  whole  of  his  after-life.  The  spectacle  of  Leo  XII., 
pale,  emaciated,  brought  back  from  death's  door  by  a 
miracle,  expending  all  his  energy  in  purifying  the  house 
of  God  and  building  up  the  ruins  made  by  revolution  and 
impiety,  dying  like  a  saint  and  desiring  to  be  buried  near 
the  altar-tomb  of  St.  Leo  the  Great,  where  he  should  be 
under  the  feet  of  the  multitude,  were  lessons  which  the 
serious-minded  and  noble-souled  son  of  Countess  Anna 
Pecci  was  to  treasure  up  for  imitation. 

The  boy — for  he  was  only  fifteen  in  1825 — followed  the 
Pope  from  church  to  church,  from  hospital  to  hospital,  as 
with  naked  feet  and  in  penitential  garb,  amid  the  chant 
of  penitential  psalms  and  prayers,  the  Common  Father  of 
Christendom  taught  his  people  how  to  turn  away  the  di- 
vine anger  from  the  earth  torn  by  convulsions  and  swept 
by  pestilence  and  flame.  All  Rome  imitated  the  conduct 
of  the  Supreme  Pastor.  Nor  were  the  youth  of  the  Roman 
schools  backward  in  following  in  the  footsteps  of  their 
elders.  Together  with  the  students  of  the  Collegio  Ro- 
mano, and  headed  by  their  respective  professors,  they  imi- 
tated the  touching  precedent  set  them  by  the  Holy  Father, 
and  made  the  pilgrimage  and  the  visits  to  all  the  seven 
churches  in  the  most  edifying  manner.  Ending  with  St. 
Peter's,  these  thousands  of  young  men  of  all  nations,  were 
then  ushered  into  the  Belvidcre  Court  in  the  Vatican, 
where  Leo  XII.  appeared  on  the  middle  balcony  above 
and  blessed  them  solemnly. 

Joachim  Pecci  was  unanimously  selected,  young  as 
he  was,  to  head  a  deputation  of  students  and  to  pre- 
sent to  the  Sovereign  Pontiff  an  address  of  thanks  in 
Latin.  This  incident,  connecting  himself  personally  with 
a  Pope  for  whom  he  entertained  so  deep  a  veneration, 


ON  THE  HILLS  AT  CARP1NETO. 


73 


was  one  of  the  most  cherished  memories  of  his  later 
years. 

Thus  the  springs  of  religious  feeling  opened  by  a  Chris- 
tian mother  in  the  soul  of  her  child,  and  so  carefully  fed 
as  he  grew  up,  gave  forth  their  waters  all  through  youth 
and  manhood. 

But  the  memory  of  that  lost  mother,  so  tenderly  loved, 
and  the  image  of  her  blessed  home  at  Carpineto,  haunted 
Pecci  amid  the  halls  of  the  Gregorian  University,  his  quiet 
rooms  in  the  Muti  Palace,  and  all  the  sights  of  Rome  at 
her  busiest  and  most  exciting  times.  His  vacations  were 
always  spent  among  his  native  hills,  the  recollections  and 
atmosphere  of  which  never  failed  to  brace  up  soul  and 
body  during  the  few  weeks  of  occupied  repose  enjoyed 
there. 

An  incident  connected  with  the  annual  vacation  spent 
among  his  native  hills  may  be  given  here  as  quite  charac- 
teristic of  the  student  of  nineteen.  During  his  fowling 
and  hunting  excursions  he  was  fond  of  resorting  to  the 
church  of  Our  Lady  of  the  Annunciation,  at  some  distance 
from  the  town,  and  in  which  was  a  painting  of  the  Ma- 
donna held  in  great  veneration.  It  was  his  custom  to 
pay  the  homage  of  his  devotion  to  the  Incarnate  God 
and  His  Mother,  and  then  to  rest  himself  in  the  shady 
portico.  Having  made  inquiries  about  the  sanctuary 
and  the  painting,  he  learned  that  the  latter  had  been 
brought  to  its  present  site  from  a  little  oratory  built 
on  the  banks  of  the  mountain  stream,  that  the  ground 
for  the  present  church  had  been  given  by  his  own  fam- 
ily, and  the  new  edifice  itself  reared  by  the  piety  of  the 
people. 

He  thereupon  resolved  to  place  on  record  the  memory 
of  these  facts ;  selected  a  monumental  stone,  fashioned  it, 
and  then  wrote  out  the  following  inscription,  which  he  cut 
into  the  slab  himself.  Scholars  can  judge  of  the  ripe 
knowledge  of  the  classic  lapidary  style  already  acquired 
by  one  so  young: 


74  LIFE  OF  LEO  AY//. 


MARINE  SANCT^E 

DEIPAR/E   AB   ANGELO   SALUTATVE 

TEMl'LUM    HOC 

QUOD   1'OSITUM   INKERIUS  SECUS   FONTEM 
KMINKRE   OLIM    MINUS   POTERAT 

CAIETANUS     PASQUALIUS 
FUNDO  A  GENTE  PECCIA  TRIBUTO 

&re  a  Carkinetensibus  collato 
In  elatiori  et  amaeniori  hade  loco 

EREX1T 
AN.    D.    MDCCLXXVII. 

TO  HOLY  MARY 

THE  MOTHER  OF  GOD,    SALUTED   BY  THE   ANGEL, 

THIS   TEMPLE 

WHICH,    PLACED   LOWER   DOWN   NEAR  A   STREAM, 
WAS  THEN   LESS  CONSPICUOUS, 

CAJETAN   PASQUALI, 

THE  GROUND   BEING  GIVEN   BV  THE   PECCI   FAMILY 

And  the  money  made  up  by  the  Carpi  netians, 

Here  in  a  loftier  and  pleasanter  place 

ERECTED 

A.D.    1777- 


CHAPTER  V. 

DRAWN  TO   THE   SERVICE   OF   GOD. 

IT  cannot  be  wondered  at  if,  taught  from  his  earliest 
years  to  revere  and  love  the  humble  sons  of  St. 
Francis  of  Assisi,  Joachim  Vincent  Pecci  should  have 
felt  secretly  drawn  to  a  life  of  self-denial  and  sacrifice. 
The  study  of  the  history  of  that  sweet  saint,  when  he 
was  better  able  to  appreciate  the  divine  poetry  with  which 
it  is  filled,  and  a  knowledge  of  the  labors,  at  home  and 
abroad,  of  the  great  family  of  saints,  missionaries,  apos- 
tles, and  scholars  founded  by  the  seraphic  lover  of  Christ 
crucified,  could  not  help  to  increase  this  attraction  toward 
the  service  of  God. 

Then  the  apostolic  virtues,  the  eminent  learning,  and 
the  still  more  eminent  holiness  of  life  of  the  first  genera- 
tion of  restored  Jesuits,  who  were  Pecci's  admiration  at 
Viterbo  and  in  Rome,  together  with  the  never-to-be-for- 
gotten figure  of  the  seventh  Pius,  surrounded  with  the  halo 
of  suffering  and  sanctity,  and  the  noble  life  of  his  im- 
mediate successor,  Pope  Leo,  were  more  than  enough  to 
inspire  a  nature  already  religiously  inclined  to  embrace 
a  career  of  devotion  to  the  good  of  others.  He  did  not 
feel  called  to  follow  his  brother,  and  selected  the  ranks 
of  the  secular  priesthood  in  which  to  combat  and  to 
labor. 

He  therefore  was  matriculated  in  1830  among  the  theo- 
logical or  Divinity  students  of  the  Gregorian  University, 
his  Alma  Mater.  Whatever  may  have  been  the  undisputed 
excellence  of  the  Jesuits'  Faculty  of  Arts  in  every  depart- 
ment, it  is  no  exaggeration  to  say  that  in  the  sphere  of 
sacred  knowledge  they  surpassed  themselves.  Their  theo- 
logians, in  1830,  were  a  galaxy  of  accomplished  men  whose 

75 


76  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

fame  belongs  to  both  hemispheres.  Among  them  were 
Perrone,  whose  works  have  ever  since  been  classic  in  the 
great  Catholic  schools  of  all  countries,  and  Patrizi,  whose 
commentaries  on  Scripture  are  esteemed  even  by  Protes- 
tant Biblical  scholars. 

It  was,  in  more  than  one  way,  an  age  of  religious  reno- 
vation, a  sort  of  intellectual  renaissance  after  a  period  of 
revolution  and  decay.  A  noble  spirit  of  emulation  under 
Leo  XII.  and  his  successors  possessed  all  the  great  Reli- 
gious Orders  in  the  Church,  and  was  manifested  in  the 
bands  of  learned  professors  with  whom  they  filled  the 
chairs  in  the  Propaganda,  the  Sapienza,  the  Minerva,  and 
the  other  celebrated  schools  of  Rome.  Leo  XII.,  soon 
after  his  accession,  in  1824,  issued  a  bull,  Quod  Divina  Sa- 
picntia,  reorganizing  Intermediate  and  University  Educa- 
tion throughout  the  Papal  States.  A  congregation  of  car- 
dinals was  given  charge  over  all  these  educational  establish- 
ments; and  the  great  University  of  the  Sapienza,*  which 
was,  properly  speaking,  the  University  of  Rome,  was  reno- 
vated and  improved  in  its  faculties,  methods,  and  discipline, 
so  as  to  be  thoroughly  on  a  level  with  the  highest  require- 
ments of  the  times. 

Joachim  Pccci  needed  no  stimulus  to  urge  him  to  attain 
in  sacred  science  the  degree  of  excellence  reached  by  him  in 
letters  and  philosophy.  People  were  then  carried  onward 
and  upward  by  the  powerful  current  which  had  set  in,  and 
which  was  most  favorable  to  all  the  highest  studies.  His 
very  first  year  in  the  Divinity  curriculum  was  crowned  by 
such  a  triumphant  success  as  went  far  to  compensate  him 
for  his  accidental  failure  of  the  previous  autumn.  He  was 
again  selected  for  a  solemn  public  disputation,  or  "Theolo- 
gical Act,"  as  it  was  called,  embracing  select  questions  from 

*  The  University  of  the  Sapiensa  derives  its  popular  name  from  the 
text  inscribed  over  its  rear  entrance  by  Sixtus  V.,  who  was  a  Franciscan 
monk,  had  filled  the  chair  of  Theology  in  it.  and  became,  when  Pope,  one 
of  its  most  generous  benefactors.  The  text  is  :  Initiiim  sapientia  tinior 
Domini — "  The  beginning  of  wisdom  is  the  fear  of  the  Lord."  The  words 
are  a  bitter  comment  on  the  principles  which  now  guide  the  teaching  of  the 
sceptic  or  anti-Christian  professors  under  Kin^  Umberto.. 


A MOtfG  HIS  CLASSMATES.  77 

all  the  matters  taught.*  The  University  Register  merely 
says  that  "  the  young  gentleman  gave  such  proof  of  his 
talent  as  to  enable  one  to  foresee  that  he  would  attain 
great  distinction."  But  the  Annuary,  recording  the  list 
of  premiums  and  the  names  of  the  laureates,  goes  out  of 
its  way  to  praise  his  great  talent  and  his  no  less  great 
industry.f 

So  much,  in  fact,  did  he  rise  above  his  classmates,  and 
above  the  level  of  knowledge  to  which  mere  learners  gene- 
rally attain,  that  he  was  appointed  to  repeat  the  lectures 
on  philosophy  to  the  pupils  of  the  German  College.  It 
was  a  happy  selection  for  him,  as  it  compelled  him  to  put 
his  scientific  lore  into  more  perfect  form  in  order  to  render 
it  profitable  to  his  hearers. 

We  find  also  mentioned  in  our  manuscript  guide  an- 
other fact  equally  creditable  to  the  Faculty  of  the  Grego- 
rian University  and  to  the  subject  of  this  history,  and  one 
which  should  interest  all  who  are  concerned  in  teaching 

*  The  fact  is  thus  mentioned  in  the  College  Register  :  "  Vincentius 
Pecci  de  selectis  quaestionibus  ex  tractatu  de  Indulgentiis,  nee  non  de  Sac- 
ramentis  Extremae  Unctionis  atque  Ordinis,  in  aula  collegii  maxima, 
publice  disputavit,  facta  omnibus  in  frequenti  praesulum  aliorumque  in- 
signium  virorum  corona,  post  tres  designates,  arguendi  potestate.  In  qua 
disputatione  idem  adolescens  tale  ingenii  sui  specimen  praebuit  ut  ad  alti- 
ora  proludere  visus  sit" — "Vincent  Pecci  held  a  disputation  in  the  great 
hall  of  the  college  on  selected  questions  on  Indulgences  and  the  Sacra- 
ments of  Extreme  Unction  and  Order.  There  was  a  large  attendance  of 
prelates  and  other  distinguished  men,  who  were  allowed,  after  the  three 
regular  objectors  had  done,  to  present  their  objections.  The  young  dis- 
putant gave  such  evidence  of  his  ability  that  one  may  easily  divine  to  what 
distinction  he  is  sure  to  attain  "  ("  Cenni  Storici,"  ibidem,  n.  3). 

f  "  Inter  theologiae  academicos,  Vincentius  Pecci  strenue  certavit  de 
Indulgentiis  in  aula  maxima,  coram  doctoribus  collegii,  aliisque  viris 
doctrina  spectatissimis.  Quum  vero  in  hac  publica  exercitatione,  acade- 
mico  more  peracta,  industrius  adolescens  non  parvam  ingenii  vim  et  dili- 
gentiam  impendent,  placuit  ejus  nomen  honoris  causa  heic  recensere  " — 
"Among  the  theological  students  Vincent  Pecci  well  maintained  a  public 
disputation  in  the  Great  Hall  before  the  college  Faculty  and  other  per- 
sons greatly  distinguished  for  learning.  Inasmuch  as  in  this  public  act, 
carried  on  according  to  rule,  the  laborious  candidate  displayed  great  talent 
and  learning,  it  is  deemed  well  to  give  him  here  honorable  mention  " 
(ibidem). 


78  LIFE  OF  LEO  xnt. 

k 

how  to  expose  and  how  to  defend  the  entire  system  of 
Revealed  Truth. 

Father  Perrone,  the  eminent  professor  of  theology,  and 
the  no  less  distinguished  Father  Manera,  who  was  prefect 
of  studies,  had  established  an  academy  among  the  theolor 
gical  students  for  the  encouragement  of  all  who  wished  to 
acquire  more  than  ordinary  skill  in  expounding  the  dogmas 
of  Revelation  and  in  defending  them  against  the  most  for- 
midable objections  of  science  and  unbelief.  To  give  this 
academy  a  firm  standing  in  the  public  opinion  of  the  uni- 
versity two  solemn  disputations  were  held  in  the  univer- 
sity hall.  Four  of  the  cleverest  academicians  prepared, 
each  on  a  given  line  of  argument,  the  most  knotty  difficul- 
ties found  against  the  supernatural  order  by  science,  ra- 
tionalism, materialism ;  against  the  Catholic  Church  by  Lu- 
therans, Janscnists,  Rationalists,  or  Caesarists.  The  person 
chosen  on  both  occasions  to  expose  the  doctrines  of  Reve- 
lation and  to  detect  and  refute  all  possible  objections  was 
Pecci.  Many  of  our  readers  will  be  familiar  with  this  large 
freedom  of  discussion,  this  thoroughness  with  which  the 
youth  of  our  great  Catholic  university  schools  are  trained 
to  the  knowledge  of  theology,  and  the  care  taken  to  fami- 
liarize them  with  the  most  formidable  weapons  used  by  the 
adversaries  of  Christianity,  as  well  as  with  those  employed 
in  defending  it  by  its  most  successful  apologists. 

Nowhere  are  truth  and  error  placed  side  by  side  and 
studied  in  all  their  bearings  with  a  more  conscientious  and 
thorough  earnestness  than  in  the  Roman  schools,  and  in 
all  those  who  follow  the  same  well-approved  and  large- 
minded  methods. 

But  these  same  readers  will  have  also  appreciated  how 
creditable  was  the  part  assigned  to  Vincent  Pecci.  And, 
in  fact,  the  credit  by  him  won  was  all  the  greater  that  he 
never  failed  to  meet  his  opponents  with  victorious  argu- 
ments couched  in  language  as  elegant  as  it  was  precise. 

The  time  had  now  come  when  he  was  to  lay  aside  the 
name  of  Vincent,  by  which  he  had  been  known  all  through 
his  college  and  university  courses.  In  1832  he  won  and  re- 


IN  THE  COLLEGE  OF  NOBLES.  79 

ceived  his  degree  of  Doctor  in  Theology,  the  highest  and 
most  important  academical  distinction  conferred  by  the 
Church.  Thenceforward  he  invariably  signed  his  name 
Gioacchino,  or  Joachim. 

Having  determined  to  cast  his  lot  with  the  secular 
priesthood,  he  found  himself,  at  the  end  of  the  year 
1832,  in  the  necessity  of  choosing  between  a  career  of 
parochial  duty  or  the  service  of  the  Holy  See.  With 
the  approval  of  his  father  and  uncle  he  resolved  on  the 
latter  course,  and,  in  consequence,  entered  the  academy 
or  college  for  noble  ecclesiastics,  which  was  the  nursery 
of  all  who  were  destined  for  a  diplomatic  or  administra- 
tive career  under  the  Pontifical  government.  The  stu- 
dents of  this  establishment  pursued  in  the  University  of 
the  Sapienza  the  special  courses  appropriate  to  their  call- 
ing. There  the  Sovereign  Pontiffs  had  secured  the  services 
of  the  most  eminent  jurists  for  the  schools  of  civil  and 
canon  law,  the  chairs  being  won  by  a  public  concourse.* 

Pecci,  while  applying  himself  diligently  to  acquire  a 
thorough  knowledge  of  civil  and  ecclesiastical  jurispru- 
dence, profited  also  by  the  great  facilities  offered  in  the 
Sapienza  to  push  still  further  his  studies  in  theology.  In- 
deed, he  gave  in  public  more  than  one  proof  of  his  uncom- 
mon proficiency  therein.  He  won,  in  particular,  in  1835, 
a  very  enviable  intellectual  triumph,  together  with  a  pre- 
mium of  sixty  sequins  ($132)  offered  for  the  best  essay 
on  one  from  among  a  hundred  given  theses.  These  were 
numbered,  and  the  contestants  had  to  draw  by  lot.  The 
thesis  which  fell  to  Pecci  was  that  of  "  Immediate  Appeals 
to  the  Roman  Pontiff  in  person."  f 

And  so  at  each  stage  of  his  education  the  young  noble- 
man displayed  the  same  conscientious  determination  to  do 
well  whatever  he  had  to  do,  to  master  thoroughly,  in  order 
the  better  to  serve  the  Divine  Master,  whatever  branch  of 
sacred  or  profane  science  was  set  before  him.  Among  the 

*  See  further  information  on  the  University  of  the  Sapienza  in  Appen- 
dix A. 

\  See  Appendix  B. 


8o  LIFE  OF  LEO  xin. 

young  nobles  who  were  his  schoolmates  in  the  Ecclesiastical 
Academy  was  one  to  whom  he  became  bound  by  a  life-long 
friendship — the  Duke  Sixtus  Riario-Sforza,  whose  saintly 
life,  heroic  virtues,  self-sacrifice,  and  unbounded  charities 
have  been  made  known  to  the  whole  civilized  world  by  the 
pens  of  non-Catholic  writers.  Appointed  Cardinal  Arch- 
bishop of  Naples  during  the  troublous  days  which  be- 
held so  many  political  and  social  changes  in  the  Kingdom 
of  the  Two  Sicilies,  as  well  as  in  the  entire  Peninsula,  Car- 
dinal Riario-Sforza  won  the  veneration  of  all  by  showing 
himself  the  man  of  God,  the  good  shepherd  ever  ready  to 
lay  down  his  life  for  his  stricken  flock. 

Such  friendships,  springing  from  identity  of  disposition 
in  two  young  souls  drawn  together,  honor  both  the  one 
and  the  other. 

In  such  holy  companionship,  and  buoyed  up  by  lofty 
aims,  Joachim  Pecci  labored  to  make  himself  worthy  of  the 
degree  of  Doctor  in  Civil  and  in  Canon  Law,  which  was  be- 
stowed on  him  after  the  usual  examinations. 

All  these  successive  academical  triumphs,  achieved  un- 
der the  eyes  of  the  highest  dignitaries  and  the  most  learn- 
ed men  in  Rome,  spread  the  young  doctor's  fame  among 
all  classes  of  Roman  society,  and  brought  him  under  the 
favorable  notice  of  the  reigning  sovereigns  themselves. 
More  than  one  even  among  the  cardinals,  attracted  to 
him  by  his  unaffected  piety,  his  modesty  and  gentle 
courtesy,  and  by  the  solid  and  general  knowledge  which 
was  so  rare  in  one  of  his  years,  foresaw  that  he  would 
render  great  service  to  the  Holy  See,  and  bestowed  not 
a  little  pains  in  counselling  and  directing  him.  The  ven- 
erable Cardinal  Sala,  in  particular,  who  had  been  asso- 
ciated with  Cardinal  Caprara*in  the  disastrous  legation  to 
Paris  in  1808,  and  whose  soul  had  been  tried,  like  that 
of  Pius  VII.  himself,  by  the  six  terrible  years  that  fol- 
lowed, conceived  a  warm  attachment  for  Pecci.  In  their  in- 
tercourse the  young  and  inexperienced  churchman  learned, 

*  Cardinal  Caprara  was  no  match  for  Napoleon  in  the  crooked  wu\s 
of  diplomacy. 


HOL  Y  FRIENDSHIPS  FORMED.  8 1 

from  one  who  had  been  thrice  purified  in  the  furnace,  many 
lessons  which  were  soon  to  be  of  priceless  service  to  him- 
self in  governing  men  and  dealing  with  governments. 

After  the  death  of  Leo  XII.,  in  1829,  the  College  of  Car- 
dinals, moved  by  the  same  lofty  motives  which  had  direct- 
ed their  choice  in  the  election  of  the  two  last  saintly  Popes, 
gave  their  suffrages  to  another  man  of  equally  splendid 
virtue  and  uncommon  learning.  But  Pius  VIII.  only  shed 
a  brief  gleam  of  brightness  on  Rome  and  the  Chair  of 
Peter ;  and  then  came  the  stormy  reign  of  Gregory  XVI., 
to  be  followed  by  one  more  stormy  still,  more  disastrous 
to  the  liberty  of  the  Sovereign  Pontiffs,  and  protracted  be- 
yond all  those  which  had  come  before  it. 

Pius  VIII. ,  who  took  in  the  members  of  the  Ecclesiasti- 
cal Academy  the  interest  which  a  sovereign  and  a  parent 
should  take  in  the  principal  nursery  of  his  future  assistants 
in  Church  and  state,  watched  the  progress  of  Pecci,  and 
bestowed  on  him  more  than  one  mark  of  his  regard. 

But  the  illustrious  Cardinal  Pacca,  the  friend,  counsellor, 
and  fellow-sufferer  of  the  seventh  Pius,  happened  to  be  the 
protector  of  the  academy,  and  took  a  lively  interest  in  the 
gentle,  pious,  refined,  and  cultivated  youth,  whom  every- 
body loved  and  praised  because  of  his  retiring,  modest, 
and  unobtrusive  disposition.  When  Gregory  XVI.  had 
succeeded  to  Pius  VIII.,  Cardinal  Pacca  warmly  recom- 
mended to  him  the  young  Pecci,  in  whom  his  experi- 
enced eye  had  discovered  uncommon  merit  and  the  pro- 
mise of  a  great  career.  Gregory  thereupon,  in  January, 
1837,  appointed  Joachim  Pecci  one  of  his  Domestic  Pre- 
lates. It  was  a  distinction  fairly  won,  not  granted  to  mere 
nobility  of  birth,  but  conferred  on  the  true  nobleness  of 
rare  virtue  united  to  accomplishments  as  rare. 

His  preparatory  studies  were  now  completed.  He  was 
about  to  begin  his  twenty-eighth  year,  the  ordinary  age  for 
receiving  Holy  Orders.  He  therefore  left  the  academy, 
and  went  to  reside  once  more  with  his  uncle  Antonio  in  the 
Muti  Palace,  near  Ara  Coeli.  On  March  16  he  was  appointed 
Referendary  to  the  Court  of  Segnatura — an  appointment 


8  2  LIFE  OF  LEO  Xlll. 

indicating  that  the  sovereign  and  his  counsellors  had  dis- 
covered in  the  young  prelate  administrative  talent  of  a 
high  order.  This  was  made  still  further  manifest  by  his 
being  given  soon  afterward  a  place  among  the  prelates 
of  the  Congregation  di  Buongcrverno,  specially  charged  with 
the  financial  administration  of  all  the  communes  of  the 
Papal  States.  Here  he  came  under  the  immediate  control 
of  his  friend  Cardinal  Sala,  who  was  president  of  the  Con- 
gregation or  Permanent  Committee  of  Government. 

Meanwhile  the  terrible  Asiatic  cholera  had  invaded 
Italy  and  made  its  way  to  Rome.  Cardinal  Sala  was 
appointed  by  the  Pope  to  superintend  all  the  cholera 
hospitals  in  the  city.  The  mortality  was  fearful,  baffling 
the  skill  of  the  physicians  and  sweeping  away  persons  of 
all  classes.  Monsignor  Pecci,  not  being  in  priest's  orders, 
could  not  help  in  ministering  to  the  spiritual  needs  and 
comfort  of  the  plague-stricken.  But,  possessing,  as  he  did, 
the  entire  confidence  of  the  cardinal,  he  became  his  right- 
hand  man,  displaying  not  only  great  practical  judgment  in 
providing  for  the  urgent  wants  of  so  many  thousands,  but 
that  indefatigable  zeal  and  that  fearlessness  of  persoii.il 
danger  which  came  as  much  from  his  own  ardent  piety 
and  his  love  of  the  poor  as  from  his  natural  unselfishness 
and  generosity. 

If,  during  these  awful  summer  months,  Monsignor  Pecci 
had  often  wished  that  he,  too,  could  be  privileged  to  minis- 
ter priestly  consolation  to  the  dying,  his  desire  was  soon 
to  receive  a  partial  fulfilment,  at  least.  He  was  told  to 
prepare  for  Holy  Orders  as  soon  as,  with  the  cold  weather, 
the  plague  had  subsided. 

On  November  13  of  the  same  memorable  year  he  re- 
ceived sub-deaconship  and  deaconship  at  the  hands  of  Car- 
dinal Odescalchi,  the  Pope's  vicar-general,  in  the  little 
chapel  of  St.  Stanislas  Kostka  in  the  gem-like  church  of 
41  St.  Andrew  on  the  Quirinal." 

It  will  help  the  reader  to  understand  the  hidden  springs 
of  the  life  we  have  undertaken  to  describe  if  he  will  pause 
with  us  a  moment  in  this,  one  of  the  most  beautiful  sane- 


PECCI  RECEIVES  not  y  O&DEKS.        83 

tuaries  in  Rome  itself,  one  of  the  sweetest  and  most  restful 
spots  for  the  traveller  and  pilgrim  in  this  city  so  crowded 
with  the  monuments  of  pagan  civilization  and  Christian 
piety.  The  author  has  just  returned  from  a  visit  to  this 
place — already  doomed,  with  all  the  edifices  which  line  the 
same  side  of  the  street  opposite  the  grand  masses  of  the 
Quirinal  Palace,  to  disappear  within  the  next  twelve  months. 

Let  us  go  back  together  to  the  I3th  of  November,  1837, 
the  anniversary  of  the  death  of  Stanislas  Kostka  (about 
1580),  the  boy-saint  whom  Catholic  Poland  reveres  as  its 
patron  and  protector  in  heaven.  Here  he  arrived,  foot- 
sore and  exhausted,  with  the  seeds  of  a  mortal  disease  fast 
spreading  in  his  frame,  after  his  long  and  perilous  journey 
from  his  native  land.  He  had  left  his  brother's  lordly  halls 
to  cast  his  lot  with  the  brethren  of  Bellarmine  and  Aloy- 
sius  Gonzaga,  of  Francis  Xavier  and  Francis  Borgia,  and 
give  his  life  to  the  work  of  evangelizing  the  heathen  in 
Asia,  America,  and  Africa.  But  the  light  of  that  young 
life,  after  blazing  out  with  surpassing  splendor  in  the  no- 
vitiate on  the  Quirinal,  went  out  for  ever.  The  sweet 
odor  of  his  virtues  remained ;  the  memory  of  the  angelic 
youth — reminding  one  of  Samuel  at  the  same  age,  a  bright 
lamp  in  God's  house  shedding  unearthly  radiance  on  the 
holy  place  for  a  brief  time — remained  ever  after  his  death, 
more  potent  to  kindle  in  the  pure  souls  of  the  young  and 
the  truly  noble  an  ardent  love  of  supernatural  excellence 
than  the  examples  of  a  long  and  eloquent  career. 

It  was  the  influence  of  this  holy  memory  that  made  all 
that  was  best  in  Rome  vie  with  each  other  in  decorating 
the  modest  little  church  where  was  buried  the  gentle  Po- 
lish pilgrim,  and  attracted  the  elite  of  Roman  youth  to 
enlist  among  the  soldiers  of  the  cross,  whose  battles  on 
both  hemispheres  Stanislas  Kostka  had  yearned  to  fight. 

It  was  a  kindred  feeling  that  made  both  Cardinal  Carlo 
Odescalchi  and  Monsignor  Pecci  select  this  retired  spot, 
this  quiet  little  sanctuary,  as  the  place  best  fitted  for  the 
latter  to  give  himself  to  the  service  of  the  altar,  like  Sam- 
uel of  old,  and  at  the  very  feet  of  Stanislas  Kostka  in  his 


84  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

tomb  to  invoke  and  receive  a  share  of  that  Spirit  who 
creates  saints  and  fires  apostles. 

It  is  a  balmy  morning  in  the  golden  autumn  of  Rome, 
this  1 3th  of  November,  1837.  The  beautiful  church  is  well 
filled  by  the  friends  who  are  come  to  see  the  accomplish- 
ed son  of  Count  Ludovico  and  Countess  Anna  Pecci  tak- 
ing his  first  irrevocable  engagements  and  devoting  his 
young  life  to  the  God  who  gave  it.  It  is  true  that  he  has 
no  thought  of  laboring  among  the  brethren  of  St.  Stanis- 
las in  the  missionary  fields  of  the  East  or  West  Indies. 
There  is  to  be  fulfilled  in  Rome  and  all  throughout  Italy, 
in  that  year  of  grace  1837,  an  apostleship  no  less  difficult 
or  important  than  the  conversion  of  the  heathen — an  apos- 
tleship increasing  both  in  difficulty  and  importance  as  the 
century  advances,  till,  fifty  years  later,  Christianity  shall 
have  to  put  forth  all  the  zeal,  the  self-sacrifice,  the  learn- 
ing, and  the  devotedness  of  the  apostolic  age  to  stem  the 
tide  of  evil. 

They  are  a  most  interesting  group  toward  whom  all 
eyes  are  directed  during  the  ordination  ceremony  in  the 
church  of  Sant'  Andrea.  The  little  chapel  of  St.  Stan- 
islas is  scarcely  more  than  a  large  niche  in  the  elliptical 
circuit  of  the  marble-encrusted  walls.  Between  the  railing 
and  the  altar  beneath  which,  in  his  sepulchral  urn  of  lapis- 
lazuli,  all  that  is  mortal  of  St.  Stanislas  reposes,  there  is 
not  space  for  more  than  a  very  few  persons  to  move  freely. 
On  the  platform  is  seated  the  cardinal  in  his  priestly  vest- 
ments— a  saintly  presence  recalling  in  very  deed  the  person 
and  the  virtues  of  St.  Charles  Borromeo ;  before  him,  at  his 
feet,  kneels  the  levite  Joachim  Pecci  in  his  simple  white 
alb.  You  might  fancy  that  both  of  these  figures  had  just 
come  down  from  the  groups  of  saintly  personages  painted 
or  frescoed  on  the  surrounding  walls,  such  an  unearthly 
light  is  on  the  features  of  both !  In  a  very  short  time 
this  cardinal  will  lay  aside  his  high  dignity,  his  princely 
rank,  turn  his  back  on  the  near  prospect  of  a  dignity  still 
higher,  and  become  a  novice  within  these  same  walls,  emu- 
lating the  humility,  the  obedience,  the  poverty  practised 


"ST.  ANDREW  ON  THE  QUIR1NAL."  85 

by  Stanislas  Kostka,  coveting  only  and  gaining  all  too 
soon  the  honor  of  dying  near  where  he  died,  clothed  with 
the  poor  livery  Stanislas  wore,  and  happy  to  be  called  his 
brother. 

Pecci  felt  himself  called  to  struggle  and  triumph  in  an- 
other sphere.  But  still  he,  too,  felt  his  soul  filled  by  the 
spirit  of  the  place.  Here  had  passed  the  great  soldier- 
saint  who  yearned  to  win  all  souls  by  persuasion  and  su- 
pernatural holiness  to  the  service  of  Christ,  and  to  make 
the  cross  rule  over  every  tribe  of  earth.  Here,  attract- 
ed by  the  magnetism  of  Ignatius's  heroic  self-denial, 
Francis  Borgia,  Duke  of  Gandia  and  Viceroy  of  Catalonia, 
had  lived,  greater  in  the  garb  of  poverty  than  when  he 
outshone  princes  in  the  imperial  court.  And  here  Fran- 
cis Xavier  had  fed  the  sacred  fire  with  which  later  he 
set  all  souls  aflame  along  the  coasts  of  India  and  the 
Archipelago  to  Japan,  where  the  fire  of  faith  still  burns 
inextinguishable. 

How  often  had  Pecci  meditated  on  all  this  during  his 
long  years  of  serious  study  in  the  Roman  College  and  the 
Sapienza,  and  his  frequent  visits  to  these  beautiful  shrines, 
which  are,  to  souls  touched  by  the  love  of  things  supei- 
nal,  like  shady  groves  near  life's  dusty  and  sun-burnt  road 
with  their  springs  of  living  water ! 

Not  without  its  influence  on  his  generous  spirit  had 
been  the  sight  of  a  royal  tomb  alongside  the  little  chapel 
of  St.  Stanislas.  Nor  can  the  pilgrim  from  afar  who 
chances  to  know  the  touching  story  of  the  king  who  lies 
buried  there,  pass  it  by  without  pausing  reverently  awhile 
to  recall  the. memory  of  his  trials  and  those  of  his  saintly 
queen.  He  was  Charles  Emmanuel  IV.  of  Savoy,  King 
of  Sardinia  and  Piedmont,  and  she  was  Marie  Clotilde  of 
France,  sister  of  Louis  XVI.  and  a  worthy  daughter  of 
St.  Louis.  This  royal  pair,  driven  from  their  throne  by 
the  Revolutionary  armies  under  Bonaparte,  had  to  fly  from 
country  to  country  as  the  wave  of  French  invasion  spread. 
But  everywhere  they  won  the  admiration  and  love  of  all 
classes  by  their  noble  fortitude,  their  benefactions,  and  the 


86  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

sweet  fragrance  shed  by  the  angelic  virtues  of  the  queen. 
Scarcely  had  they  been  restored  to  theij-  kingdom  when 
she  was  called  away  to  her  rest,  and  he,  ambitious  only  to 
be  worthy  of  her  in  the  better  life,  laid  down  his  recovered 
sceptre  and  became  a  poor  lay  brother  in  this  house  where 
St.  Stanislas  had  lived  and  died. 

Little  dreamed  he,  as  his  last  years  were  spent  here  in 
the  shadow  of  the  Peace  Eternal,  that  long  ere  the  century 
had  closed  princes  of  his  own  blood  would  be  enthroned 
yonder  across  the  way  in  the  Quirinal ;  that  the  men  whom 
he  called  his  brothers  and  served  with  his  royal  hands  would 
be  pitilessly  expelled  from  their  home ;  and  that  house  and 
church,  the  chapel  and  shrine  of  St.  Stanislas  and  his  own 
resting-place  in  death,  must  disappear  before  the  blind 
hatred  of  the  new  domination. 

But  we  must  not  anticipate. 

On  the  last  day  of  that  same  year,  1837,  Cardinal  Odes- 
calchi,  in  the  private  chapel  of  his  residence  in  the  vicar 
riate,  conferred  the  order  of  Priesthood  on  Joachim  Pecci. 
As  the  year  1838  dawned  upon  the  world  the  young 
priest  was  privileged  to  go  up  to  the  Altar  of  the  Lamb, 
and  to  offer  that  Eucharistic  oblation  which  to  the  priest 
is  the  sweetest,  dearest,  and  most  unfailing  source  of  com- 
fort, strength,  and  zeal  in  the  divine  service. 

How  he  shall  need  the  light  and  strength  from  on 
high,  and  to  what  uses  he  was  to  put  them,  we  shall  see 
presently. 


PART  SECOND. 


JOACHIM  PECCrS  ADMINISTRATIVE  AND  DIPLOMATIC  CAREER. 
January,  1838-1846. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

MOXSIGNOR    PECCl'S  FIRST    SHINING    PROOFS    OF    PRACTI- 
CAL STATESMANSHIP — GOVERNOR  OF  BENEVENTO. 

[1838  to  1841.] 

HE  life  of  Joachim  Pecci  was  thenceforward  devoted 
to  the  service  of  the  Holy  See,  although  his  hope 
and  desire  were  that  he  might  be  allowed  to  labor  for  it 
in  Rome  and  to  confine  his  attention  to  purely  ecclesias- 
tical matters.  Cardinal  Sala,  who  was  well  acquainted  with 
the  wishes  of  his  protege  and  with  his  capacity,  had  taken 
pains  to  have  him  attached  to  the  great  congregations  of 
the  Propaganda,  of  Bishops  and  Regulars,  and  of  the  Coun- 
cil.* Cardinal  Lambruschini,  who  was  the  Pope's  Secre- 
tary of  State,  or  Prime  Minister,  and  who  appreciated 
Monsignor  Pecci's  rising  merit,  had  him  appointed  official 
to  several  other  most  important  bodies,  placing  him,  in  this 
preparatory  stage,  under  the  especial  care  of  the  learned 
prelates  (soon  to  be  cardinals)  Frezza  and  Brunelli.  This 
solicitude  about  his  thorough  training  was  an  evidence  of 
the  great  opinion  they  had  of  his  ability  and  character. 

He  must  have  given  more  than  ordinary  satisfaction 
to  the  cardinals  who  watched  his  conduct  so  closely  during 
the  trying  cholera  season,  and  they  must  have  reported 
to  the  Holy  Father  how  well  fitted  the  young  prelate  was 
to  manage  the  most  important  public  business  and  to 
govern  men;  for  Gregory  XVI.,  in  February,  1838,  ap- 
pointed him  Delegate  or  Governor  of  the  Province  of 
Benevento,  with  instructions  to  repair  without  delay  to 
his  government. 

This  little   principality,  which    is    only   forty-six    geo- 

*See  Appendix  C. 


90  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

graphical  square  miles  in  extent,  was  given,  like  other 
possessions,  to  the  Popes  by  the  piety  of  former  ages.  It 
is  situated  in  the  midst  of  what  was  once  the  kingdom  of 
Naples,  a  short  day's  journey  from  the  city  of  that  name, 
and  in  the  midst  of  a  population  which,  in  1838,  had  been 
rendered  utterly  reckless  of  all  rule  by  the  preceding  po- 
litical and  social  changes.  Napoleon  I.,  in  his  hour  of 
undisputed  supremacy,  had  given  this  little  territory,  with 
the  title  of  Prince  of  Benevento,  to  his  clever  and  unprin- 
cipled minister,  Talleyrand.  There  are  writers  who  say, 
not  without  some  show  of  good  reason,  that  Talleyrand, 
whose  wife  Pius  VII.  had  refused  to  see  during  his  stay  in 
Paris  for  the  coronation  ceremonies,  had  revenged  himself 
on  the  Pontiff  by  urging  the  crowned  soldier  to  possess 
himself  of  the  Papal  States,  and  to  bestow  on  him,  the 
apostate  ex-Bishop  of  Autun,  a  slice  of  the  territory  thus 
sacrilegiously  and  iniquitously  taken  away  from  an  unarmed 
and  defenceless  sovereign. 

This  is  not  the  place  to  show  how  little  such  usurpation 
and  spoliation  served  either  the  emperor  or  the  minister 
who  was  his  evil  genius.  But  the  French  rule  in  Bene- 
vento, as  well  as  the  short-lived  reign  of  Murat  in  Naples, 
together  with  the  growth  and  spread,  in  the  south  of  Italy 
especially,  of  Carbonarism,  Jacobinism,  brigandage,  and  law- 
lessness, rendered  the  government  of  these  populations  a 
matter  of  almost  moral  impossibility,  once  the  French  had 
withdrawn  and  the  former  rulers  resumed  their  sway. 

The  men  who  had  been  the  firmest  in  their  loyalty  to 
the  princes  expelled  by  Napoleon,  and  had  been  most  ac- 
tive in  organizing  against  the  French  occupiers  the  gue- 
rilla bands  which  defied  the  pursuit  of  the  best-disciplined 
troops,  soon  became  themselves  the  terror  of  the  entire 
country.  They  levied  a  heavy  tax  on  the  towns  and  ham- 
lets they  protected,  or  pretended  to  protect,  against  the 
foreign  invader ;  they  blackmailed  the  rich  and  the  power- 
ful, and  profited  by  the  fear  they  inspired  to  oppress  and 
to  plunder  friends  as  well  as  foes,  and  to  gratify  with  im- 
punity their  greed  or  their  private  resentments,  Indeed, 


UGR.  PECCI  AS  GOVERNOR  OP    BENEVENTO.  9! 

the  powerful  and  the  rich  who  had,  in  the  beginning  of 
the  invasion,  been  instrumental  in  getting  up  these  armed 
bands,  and  had  often  led  them  in  their  desperate  encoun- 
ters with  the  French,  soon  began  to  feel  that  brigandage 
was  a  powerful  weapon  for  serving  their  own  selfish  pur- 
poses, even  when  it  had  no  longer  the  pretext  of  serving 
the  public  good. 

The  restoration,  therefore,  of  the  Bourbons  to  Naples 
and  of  the  Pope  to  Rome  found,  in  every  province  of  the 
southern  kingdom  at  least,  society  in  town  and  country 
fallen  back  to  the  disorders  of  the  feudal  times.  The 
wealthy  and  the  nobles  had  filled  their  castles  with  armed 
retainers,  and  these  had  to  live  on  the  country. 

In  the  little  province  of  Benevento  another  evil  seri- 
ously increased  and  complicated  this  state  of  lawlessness 
and  confusion.  The  Papal  rule  was  mild  and  fatherly  at 
all  times ;  the  people  had  no  heavy  burden  of  imposts  or 
taxes  to  bear.  Then  a  small  province  situated  in  the  very 
heart  of  a  foreign  and  quite  different  government  would 
naturally  become  the  refuge  of  smugglers  and  a  retreat  for 
evil-doers  flying  from  justice.* 

There  was  thus  perpetual  risk  of  conflict  between  the 
Neapolitan  and  the  Papal  authorities,  as  well  as  a  growing 
contempt  for  all  law  and  order  among  the  Beneventini, 
particularly  among  the  classes  interested  in  maintaining 
disorder  and  violence. 

Such  was  the  state  of  things  for  which  it  was  expected 
a  young  priest  of  twenty-eight  years  could  find  a  remedy. 
Gregory  XVI.  and  his  counsellors  must  have  had  a  very 
high  opinion  of  the  youthful  prelate,  and  his  ability  to 
cope  with  well-organized  bands  of  desperate  men,  to  think 
of  despatching  him  on  such  a  mission,  when  others,  far 
more  experienced  and  of  higher  dignity,  had  failed  to 
check  the  inveterate  disorder  and  had  retired,  baffled,  from 
their  battle  with  brigandage  and  smuggling. 

But,  whether  he  had  taken  the  seeds  of  typhoid  fever 

*See  the  author's  "Leo  XIII.  and  hit  Probable  Policy,"  New  York, 
March,  1878  ;  MS. 


92  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

with  him  from  Rome,  or  had  contracted  the  disease  during 
the  then  long  and  tedious  journey  through  the  Pontine 
Marshes  or  his  brief  stay  in  Naples,  he  was  taken  sudden- 
ly ill  the  third  day  after  his  arrival  in  Bcnevento.  Per- 
haps, considering  the  nature  of  the  disorders  which  he  was 
commissioned  to  repress,  and  the  numbers  of  men  of  all 
classes  interested  in  their  continuance,  it  was  a  kindly  dis- 
position of  Providence  which  permitted  the  young  Dele- 
gate to  be  thus  brought  to  death's  door  almost  immedi- 
ately on  his  arrival  amidst  the  excited  population.  The 
Beneventini  had  been  very  favorably  impressed  by  the 
youth,  the  dignified  bearing,  the  gentle  courtesy,  and  the 
graceful  speeches  of  their  new  governor;  and  while  both 
the  lawless  among  them  and  the  law-abiding  were  discuss- 
ing the  qualities  of  the  man  and  his  probable  course  of 
action,  they  were  startled  to  hear  that  his  life  was  in  immi- 
nent danger.  Then  people  began  to  speak  of  the  good- 
ness he  had  displayed  toward  the  poor  people  during  the 
terrible  visitation  of  the  cholera,  and  the  grateful  popular 
heart  was  moved  by  the  mortal  peril  of  one  so  young 
and  so  accomplished,  sent  among  them,  too,  on  an 
errand  of  mercy  in  favor  of  the  oppressed  laboring 
classes. 

The  ripest  medical  skill  which  Naples  could  supply  was 
summoned  ;  but  the  very  best  physicians  could  only  declare 
that  their  skill  was  powerless,  so  malignant  was  the  distem- 
per and  so  rapid  the  effects  of  its  poison  on  a  frame  ex- 
hausted by  long  and  severe  study,  and  perhaps  weakened 
by  the  austerities  of  ascetic  fervor.  The  case  was  pro- 
nounced hopeless. 

Meanwhile  public  prayers  were  offered  for  his  recovery 
in  all,  the  churches  of  the  city.  But  the  ardent  southern 
nature  would  not  be  contented  with  that.  As  the  danger  of 
losing  their  youthful  governor  increased  hourly,  and  people 
could  only  speak  of  his  goodness,  his  piety,  and  his  learn- 
ing, he  seemed  to  them  an  angel  sent  to  heal  all  their  pub- 
lic ills,  and  about  to  be  suddenly  taken  from  them  in  pun- 
ishment of  their  own  evil  doings. 


A  DANGEROUS  ILLNESS.  93 

In  the  outskirts  of  Benevento  is  one  of  those  sanctu- 
aries of  the  Blessed  Virgin  Mary,  one  of  those  chosen  spots 
dear  to  those  who,  in  the  ever-recurring  political  commo- 
tions of  the  times  and  the  popular  suffering  they  brought 
in  their  train,  loved  to  come  to  the  Incarnate  Son  of  God 
and  to  supplicate  His  aid,  as  it  were,  in  the  house  of  His 
Mother  and  through  her  intercession. 

This  sanctuary,  where  the  popular  belief  asserted  that 
our  Lord  had  often  heard  the  cry  of  bruised  hearts  and 
needy  souls,  was  called  the  Church  of  the  Virgin  of  Graces. 
Thither  the  citizens  went  in  solemn  procession  to  implore 
Christ's  Mother  to  plead  with  her  Son  for  a  life  so  dear  to 
them — so  precious,  though  they  knew  it  not,  to  the  Uni- 
versal Church. 

There  was  also  in  Benevento  at  that  time  a  college  of 
Jesuits  which  did  good  work  in  educating  the  youth  of  the 
province  and  the  neighboring  country.  To  them  Monsi- 
gnor  Pecci  was  well  known,  having  been  trained  in  their 
schools,  and  reflecting  such  honor  on  his  masters  by  his 
brilliant  successes.  Their  concern  was  therefore  great  at 
beholding  him  reduced  to  such  sudden  extremity  by  the 
dreaded  fever.  The  rector  of  the  college,  Father  Tessan- 
dori,  was  one  of  that  early  generation  of  the  restored  Jesu- 
its who  had  sacrificed  much,  braved  persecution,  and  been 
purified  by  the  flame  of  long  and  malignant  obloquy.  The 
people  revered  him  for  his  saintly  life,  the  educated  ad- 
mired him  for  his  great  learning.  He  was  simply  a  man  of 
God.  He  joined  his  prayers  with  those  of  the  entire  popu- 
lation, and  had,  moreover,  recourse  to  one  of  those  divine 
men  who  pass  through  this  world  like  Isaias  in  the  days  of 
Achab  and  Jezabel,  appearing  in  public  only  to  be  the  in- 
terpreters of  God's  judgments  on  an  offending  generation, 
or  to  confound  His  enemies  by  some  unexpected  display 
of  His  power ;  who  were,  in  seasons  of  dire  distress,  the 
comfort  and  the  salvation  of  the  famishing  and  plague- 
stricken.  Such  had  Francesco  de  Geronimo  been  in  the 
last  century  to  the  whole  kingdom  of  Naples.  And  now 
Father  Tessandori  invoked  his  succor  in  favor  of  the  young 


94  MF&  OF  LEO  XIII. 

prelate,  on  whose  preservation  so  many  mighty  issues  de- 
pended in  the  designs  of  Providence. 

Certain  it  is  that  all  these  prayers  were  heard,  and  that, 
against  all  hope  and  contrary  to  the  judgment  of  the  phy- 
sicians, the  fever  relaxed  its  hold  on  the  victim.*  On  first 
hearing  of  Monsignor  Pecci's  illness  the  Pope  manifested 
the  deepest  concern.  He,  too,  had  daily  prayers  offered  up 
in  Rome  for  the  recovery  of  the  sufferer,  and  demanded 
that  daily  information  should  be  sent  him  about  the  pro- 
gress of  the  illness. 

The  recovery,  coming  as  unexpectedly  as  the  malignant 
fever  itself,  filled  the  people  of  Benevento  as  well  as  the 
Roman  Court  with  sincere  joy.  No  sooner  was  Monsignor 
Pecci  able  to  attend  to  business  than  he  set  about  making 
himself  thoroughly  acquainted  with  all  classes  of  the  peo- 
ple, and  took  every  possible  means  to  repress  the  invete- 
rate disorders  which  had  until  then  defied  all  efforts  at  re- 
form, as  well  as  to  promote  education,  agriculture,  and  in- 
dustry in  the  province. 

His  first  act,  however,  was  to  lay,  at  the  request  of  the 
octogenarian  Cardinal  Bussi,  Archbishop  of  Benevento,  the 
corner-stone  of  a  new  church  in  honor  of  Our  Lady  of 
Graces,  destined  to  replace  the  venerable  but  ruinous  sanc- 
tuary whither  the  citizens  had  gone  in  solemn  procession 
to  pray  for  his  own  recovery.  The  new  edifice  was  a 
votive  offering  to  the  Incarnate  Word  and  His  Mother 
in  thanksgiving  for  having  been  preserved  from  the 
cholera  the  year  before.  The  plague  had  committed  fear- 

*The  MS.,  as  was  to  be  expected  where  anything  miraculous  is  con- 
cerned, is  extreirely  measured  in  its  statement  : 

"  II  Padre  Tessandori,  Rettore  del  Collegio  dei  Gesuiti,  uomo  di 
santissima  vita,  assisteva  con  carita  ammirabile  al  letto  del  Prelato  mo- 
rente,  e  con  una  reliquia  di  San  Francesco  di  Geronimo  posta  sul  corpo 
dell'  infermo,  scongiurava  con  fervidissime  preci  la'grazia  della  guarigicne. 
Fu  meraviglioso  1  intervento  di  questo  Santo,  e  non  e  lecito  svelarne  il 
segreto." — "Father  Tessandori,  Rector  of  the  Jesuit  College,  a  man  of  most 
holy  life,  stood  by  the  bed  of  the  dying  prelate  with  admirable  charity,  and, 
by  means  of  a  relic  of  St.  Francis  de  Geronimo  placed  on  the  invalid's  body, 
he  besought  the  grace  of  a  perfect  cure  with  the  most  fervent  prayers.  The 
mediation  of  the  saint  proved  to  be  miraculous,  but  we  are  not  allowed  to 
reveal  its  secret." 


SUPPRESSING  BRIGANDAGE  AND  SMUGGLING.        95 

ful  ravages  in  Naples  and  its  environs,  but  spared  Bene- 
vento. 

The  entire  city  and  country  was  represented  at  the 
solemn  ceremony  of  blessing  the  corner-stone.  It  afforded 
Monsignor  Pecci  a  most  favorable  opportunity  for  making 
the  acquaintance  of  the  people  of  every  class,  to  whom  he 
now  felt  so  grateful,  and  whose  attachment  to  him  was 
naturally  increased  by  their  own  pious  interest  in  his  re- 
covery. Happy  and  graceful  at  all  times  in  his  discourses, 
his  words  on  this  occasion  must  have  had,  together  with 
the  eloquence  of  the  heart,  a  peculiar  force  and  apposite- 
ness  from  his  own  relation  toward  the  people  and  the 
province. 

The  brigands,  smugglers,  outlaws,  and  their  protectors 
fancied,  at.  first,  that  they  could  be  more  than  a  match  for 
the  young  scholar,  pale  from  the  long  vigils  of  his  study  in 
Rome,  and  now  sadly  debilitated  by  a  dangerous  illness. 
But  the  knowledge  he  had  previously  had,  as  a  high  officer 
of  the  Roman  government,  of  the  condition  of  things  in 
Benevento  and  of  the  misdeeds  of  the  men  who  now  con- 
fronted him,  had  enabled  the  delegate  to  make  up  his 
mind  to  quick,  sharp,  and  decisive  measures. 

The  Pontifical  troops  at  his  disposal  made  a  sudden  and 
combined  descent  on  the  principal  strongholds  of  the  bri- 
gands, on  the  most  secret  retreats  of  the  outlaws  and  smug- 
glers. One  of  the  most  dreaded  chiefs  of  these  lawless 
bands,  who  kept  the  country  in  perpetual  fear,  was  one 
Pasquale  Colletta,  who  had  his  centre  of  operations  in  the 
Villa  Mascambroni,  whence,  at  the  head  of  fourteen  des- 
peradoes like  himself,  he  was  in  the  habit  of  raiding  the 
country  on  every  side.  All  had  to  pay  this  brigand  black- 
mail in  order  to  save  their  property,  persons,  and  lives. 

It  was  with  equal  joy  and  surprise,  therefore,  that  the 
Beneventini  one  morning  beheld  this  dreaded  tyrant,  with 
every  man  of  his  band,  led  in  chains  through  their  streets 
by  the  Pontifical  soldiers.  Toward  men  who  had  stained 
themselves  with  innocent  blood,  and  who  had  set  at  naught 
all  law  and  authority,  the  Delegate  was  justly  severe.  No 


96  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

intercession  availed  to  save  the  murderer,  the  midnight  rob- 
ber, the  oppressor  of  the  weak,  the  defenceless  and  inoffen- 
sive. But  with  this  inflexible  firmness  toward  the  invete- 
rate criminal  and  law-breaker  he  joined  great  patience  in  ex- 
amining into  the  cases  referred  to  him,  and  great  impartiali- 
ty in  weighing  the  evidence  for  and  against  the  criminal. 

The  decision  once  given,  however,  was  irrevocable. 

He  was,  if  anything,  more  severe  toward  criminals  of 
high  social  standing  than  toward  those  of  inferior  rank  and 
education.  Nor  did  it  avail  the  noble,  wealthy,  or  power- 
ful relatives  or  friends  to  intercede  for  high  offenders,  once 
the  guilt  of  the  latter  had  been  clearly  established. 

One  of  the  most  serious  sources  of  difficulty  between 
the  Pontifical  and  the  Neapolitan  governments  arose  from 
the  fact  that  numbers  of  political  conspirators  and  others 
guilty  of  high  political  misdemeanors  in  the  kingdom  of 
Naples  had  long  found  a  safe  refuge  in  the  province  of 
Benevento,  where  they  continued  to  hatch  their  plots  and 
to  defy  all  pursuit.  This  had  given  rise  to  grave  compli- 
cations. 

Monsignor  Pecci's  firmness  toward  these  refugees  forced 
them  to  quit  the  Pontifical  territory  and  to  seek  an  asylum 
elsewhere.  Thereby  the  difficulty  between  the  two  gov- 
ernments was  happily  terminated,  and  King  Ferdinand  ex- 
pressed his  satisfaction  and  thanks  through  the  Marquis 
del  Carretto,  his  minister. 

In  an  earlier  biography  the  author  related,  in  substance, 
the  following  fact,  to  which  later  authentic  information 
permits  him  to  add  fuller  details. 

One  day,  while  the  whole  province  of  Benevento  and 
the  adjacent  Neapolitan  districts  were  excited  over  the 
success  with  which  Monsignor  Pecci  was  following  up  his 
raids  on  brigandage  and  smuggling,  a  nobleman  of  the  for- 
mer locality,  who  had  been  the  most  active  promoter  of  all 
these  disorders,  had  the  audacity  to  complain  to  the  Dele- 
gate that  the  custom-house  officers  had  not  respected  the 
privacy  of  his  home,  nor  the  dignity  of  marquis  inherited 
from  his  ancestors.  Vainly  did  Monsignor  Pecci  endeavor 


HO  W  HE  TREA  TED  G  UIL  T  Y  NOBLES.  9  7 

to  convince  his  arrogant  visitor  that  the  laws  are  made  for 
all  classes  in  the  community  without  distinction  of  birth  or 
rank ;  and  that  the  highest  in  station  owe  to  those  beneath 
them  the  example  of  being  law-abiding.  The  man's  pride 
was  up  in  arms  against  such  reasoning,  as  well  as  against 
the  pale,  sickly  young  prelate  who  had  dared  to  put  such 
an  insult  on  his  nobility  as  to  threaten  to  have  his  ances- 
tral castle  searched  by  the  gendarmerie. 

He  told  the  Delegate  to  his  face  that  he  would  forth- 
with set  out  for  Rome,  whence  he  would  soon  return  with 
an  order  recalling  the  man  who  was  turning  the  country 
upside  down.  "  You  may  go  on  your  errand,  my  lord  mar- 
quis," was  the  firm  and  calm  reply.  "  But  I  warn  you  that 
on  arriving  in  Rome  you  shall  have  to  pass  through  Castle 
Sant'  Angelo  before  carrying  your  complaints  to  the  Vati- 
can." 

The  answer  completely  cowed  the  blusterer,  who  had 
to  give  up  all  thought  of  resistance.  Immediately  after- 
ward his  castle  was  surrounded  and  taken  by  the  Pontifical 
troops,  and  its  numerous  garrison  of  brigands  and  smug- 
glers carried  off  to  prison. 

In  this  campaign  against  brigandage  and  smuggling 
Monsignor  Pecci's  right-hand  man  had  been  an  officer  of 
the  name  of  Sterbini.  With  his  aid  he  also  established  cus- 
toms offices,  with  an  efficient  military  support,  at  the  most 
important  points  of  the  frontier,  giving  to  Sterbini  the  su- 
perintendence of  the  whole.* 

The  young  Governor  did  not  content  himself  with  rid- 
ding the  province  of  all  these  chronic  sources  of  evil ;  he 
had  carefully  and  conscientiously  studied  its  resources  and 
the  needs  of  the  population.  To  develop  agriculture  and 
other  local  industries,  roads,  good  and  practical  at  all  sea- 
sons, must  be  opened  between  Benevento  and  the  adjoining 
provinces  of  Molise,  Terra  di  Lavoro,  and  Avellino.  This 
would  make  their  market-towns  easily  accessible  to  his 
people,  and  place  the  markets  of  Benevento  within  easy 
distance  of  the  neighboring  Neapolitan  populations. 

*MS. 


98  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

He  made  a  rapid  journey  to  Rome  to  confer  with  Gre- 
gory XVI.  and  his  ministers  on  what  he  purposed  doing 
for  the  development  of  the  province  entrusted  to  him,  and 
returned  with  full  powers  to  carry  out  the  plans  proposed. 
So  the  new  roads  were  at  once  constructed.  Moreover,  the 
taxes  and  imposts  levied  by  the  French  during  their  occu- 
pation, and,  like  all  French  exactions  in  countries  held  by 
the  sword,  wrung  from  the  people  in  spite  of  the  absence 
of  commerce  and  local  industry,  had  not  been  altogether 
repealed  after  the  restoration  of  the  Papal  authority.  The 
young  Delegate,  who  had  even  then  a  keen  eye  for  the 
needs  of  both  country  and  people,  a  just  and  warm  sense 
of  the  duties  more  even  than  of  the  rights  of  the  govern- 
ment with  respect  to  the  governed,  had  not  much  difficulty 
in  persuading  one  so  wise  and  so  unworldly  as  Gregory 
XVI.  and  his  treasurer,  Monsignor  Tosti. 

The  people  of  Benevento  were  relieved  of  their  bur- 
dens ;  brigandage  and  smuggling  disappeared ;  the  reign 
of  law,  with  order,  peace,  and  security,  was  firmly  estab- 
lished in  town  and  country ;  agriculture  revived  in  this 
atmosphere  of  true  liberty  with  law  and  with  lightened 
taxation ;  industry  and  commerce  sprang  into  new  life  with 
agriculture  and  the  opening  of  accessible  markets.  All 
men  went  about  their  business  without  fear  of  midnight 
violence  or  outrage  committed  in  the  open  day.  It  was  a 
transformation  ;  and  less  than  three  years  of  wise  states- 
manship and  true  political  economy  had  sufficed  to  make 
the  change. 

Just  then  the  King  of  Naples  was  urging  the  Pontifical 
government  to  exchange  the  province  of  Benevento  for  a 
larger  territory  adjoining  the  Papal  States,  and  apparently 
much  more  desirable  to  the  Pope.  The  negotiation  was 
very  nearly  concluded  when  the  Secretary  of  State,  Cardi- 
nal Lambruschini,  thought  it  proper  to  notify  Monsignor 
Pecci  and  to  ask  him  to  give  his  advice  in  writing.  This 
made  the  latter  write  at  once  an  energetic  remonstrance 
against  the  impolicy  of  such  an  exchange,  accompanied  by 
a  detailed  report  and  considerations  of  a  high  political  and 


THE  YOUNG  GOVERNOR'S  STATESMANSHIP.          99 

moral  order  which  should  forbid  the  Pope's  government 
from  entertaining  such  a  proposition.  Among  the  motives 
urged  against  the  cession  of  Benevento  were  deep  religious 
reasons.  The  ecclesiastical  province  of  that  name  had  one 
metropolitan  and  fourteen  suffragan  sees,  so  that  the  spirit- 
ual needs  of  the  people  were  far  better  provided  for  than 
they  were  likely  to  be  under  a  merely  secular  government. 

The  advice  of  the  Delegate  prevailed  with  the  Holy 
Father,  and  the  negotiations  were  broken  off. 

So,  with  the  extirpation  of  brigandage,  the  expulsion  of 
political  conspirators  and  refugees,  and  the  revival  of  agri- 
culture and  industry,  it  was  now  an  easy  task  to  govern 
Benevento.  Any  delegate  would  be  sure  to  be  welcome 
and  blessed  there  who  would  be  more  anxious  to  fulfil  his 
duties  as  the  representative  of  a  fatherly  sovereign  than 
to  stand  on  his  rights  as  a  ruler  and  a  master. 

Gregory  XVI.,  whose  expectations  had  been  more  than 
justified  by  the  inexperienced  young  prelate  of  twenty- 
eight,  had  now  a  wider  field  for  his  talent — an  administra- 
tion beset  with  far  more  difficulties. 

So  Monsignor  Pecci  was  suddenly  summoned  to  Rome. 
But  to  this  day  his  name  is  loved  and  blessed  by  the  Bene- 
ventini. 

One  circumstance  unmentioned  in  our  manuscript  Me- 
moir occurred  soon  after  Monsignor  Pecci's  departure  for 
Benevento — that  was  the  death  of  his  father,  which  took 
place  on  March  8,  1838.  It  was  a  great  grief  to  the  young 
prelate,  and  contributed  not  a  little,  perhaps,  to  the  utter 
prostration  which  at  one  time  threatened  to  cut  off  all 
hopes  of  his  recovery. 


CHAPTER   VII. 

PERUGIA  AND  ALL  UMBRIA  FIRST  BECOME  ACQUAINTED 
WITH  JOACHIM  PECCI — HOW  THE  YOUNG  STATESMAN 
DEALT  WITH  THE  CAUSES  OF  ITALY'S  UNREST. 

[May,  1841,  to  January,  1843.] 

fpvONSIGNOR  PECCI  was  recalled  to  Rome  from  his 
^  •  -^  government  in  May,  1841,  and  was  immediately 
appointed  Delegate  of  Spoleto.  This  was  rapid  promotion 
for  one  so  young.  But,  amid  the  effervescence  which  the 
revolutionary  societies  were  fomenting  all  through  the 
Papal  States — all  through  the  Italian  Peninsula,  indeed — 
the  Sovereign  Pontiff  thought  that  one  who  had  shown  so 
deep  and  almost  intuitive  a  knowledge  of  the  means  of 
preventing  as  well  as  of  curing  popular  discontent  should 
be  sent  to  one  of  the  principal  centres  of  agitation — Pe- 
rugia. 

Perugia,  the  capital  of  Umbria,  is,  like  Chiusi  and  Spo- 
leto, like  Orvieto  and  Siena,  like  the  ancient  Etruscan 
Fiesole,  one  of  those  hill-cities  with  which  Central  Italy 
abounds,  and  whose  position  above  the  plain  suggests  se- 
curity from  predatory  warfare,  where  it  has  not  been  cho- 
sen also  for  security  against  the  malaria  which  ravages  the 
lowlands.  It  was  one  of  those  mediaeval  republics  whose 
growth  was  fostered  by  the  Church,  and  whose  foundation 
and  progress  were  the  joint  product  of  free  labor  sanctified 
and  sustained  by  religion.  Like  its  sister-commonwealths 
of  Umbria,  Etruria,  Emilia,  and  Lombardy,  Perugia  had  a 
long  struggle  against  the  ambition  of  the  feudal  nobles  and 
its  own  wealthy  burgesses,  all  striving  to  win  the  mastery 
by  force  of  arms  or  to  purchase  it  by  gold.  Gold  and  the 
military  skill  of  the  aristocracy  succeeded  everywhere  in  sti- 
fling the  liberty  which  the  workingmen's  guildsjiad  created, 


MGR.  PECCI  APPOINTED  GOVERNOR  OF  UMBRIA.    IQI 

in  possessing  themselves  of  the  rich  field  cultivated  so  pain- 
fully during  long  centuries  by  religion  and  free  labor  work- 
ing side  by  side,  and  just  as  it  was  ripening  into  the  golden 
harvest  of  the  most  magnificent  civilization  the  world  had 
ever  seen. 

This  beautiful  city  of  Perugia,  just  as  it  had  passed  for 
ever  out  of  the  hands  of  one  set  of  tyrants  to  be  ruled  by 
the  Popes  as  sovereigns,  was  made  still  more  beautiful  by 
one  of  its  own  adopted  sons,  Pietro  Vanucci  (better  known 
as  the  painter  Perugino,  the  master  of  the  great  Raphael). 
In  the  latter  half  of  the  fifteenth  century  the  tyranny  which 
had  sprung  up  in  the  Italian  free  cities  on  the  ruins  of  me- 
diaeval liberty  was  half-concealed  under  the  outward  forms 
of  self-government  still  left  in  the  hands  of  the  citizens. 
The  thrift  of  the  labor  guilds  had  literally  created  Siena 
and  Florence,  Pisa  and  Genoa,  Perugia  and  Arezzo  and 
Assisi,  just  as  they  had  Milan  and  Lodi,  Crema,  Cremona, 
Mantua,  and  Verona,  with  so  many  others  all  over  the  land. 

It  was  the  Guild  of  Merchants  who  invited  Pietro  Va- 
nucci to  adorn  the  City  Exchange  with  the  masterpieces 
of  art  which  we  admire  even  in  their  decay.  And  the  mag- 
nificent cathedral,  with  the  numerous  churches  which  shine 
on  the  hillside  like  brilliants  in  the  diadem  of  a  queen — 
what  are  they,  like  those  of  Florence,  Siena,  Pisa,  and  Milan, 
but  the  creations  of  a  generous  people  of  workingmen, 
craftsmen,  and  merchants  ? 

The  important  province  of  which  Perugia  was  the  capi- 
tal possessed  many  beautiful  cities,  each  sprung  from  the 
same  forces  of  labor,  magnificent  piety,  thrift,  religion,  and 
liberty.  Near  at  hand  was  Assisi  on  its  hill-top,  with  the 
glorious  temple  and  monastery  which  had  sprung,  grown 
up,  and  blossomed  out  of  the  tomb  of  St.  Francis.  Why 
mention  others  ? 

But  in  the  year  1841  the  seeds  left  behind  by  French 
Voltaireanism  and  Jacobinism  had  been  long  growing  and 
waxing  strong,  till  they  now  defied  all  efforts  to  uproot 
them.  They  had  become  so  thickly  mixed  with  the  wheat 
in  the  ripening  harvest-field  that  to  the  wisest  husbandry 


IO2  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

it  was  a  puzzle  to  know  how  to  prevent  them  from  utterly 
choking  the  good  grain. 

Italy  in  1820  counted  upwards  of  one  hundred  thou- 
sand Carbonari,  or  charcoal-burners.  But  all  the  Carbonari 
of  1820  were,  some  writers  affirm,  not  hostile  to  religion, 
certainly  not  to  the  religion  of  Christ.  The  more  formida- 
ble, far  more  wide-spread,  infinitely  better  organized  socie- 
ties which  covered,  like  a  net  from  which  there  was  no  es- 
cape, every  province  and  city,  every  town  and  hamlet  of 
the  Peninsula,  were  pledged  to  fhe  destruction  of  the  exist- 
ing Church  and  religion,  as  to  that  of  the  sole  barrier  which 
stood  between  them  and  the  realization  of  a  United  Italy, 
free  from  foreign  domination ;  of  a  kingly  Italy  first,  if  so 
it  must  be,  but  finally  in  the  constitution  of  a  republic 
without  Church,  pontiff,  or  priest — a  radical  centralized 
democracy. 

Ideas,  in  our  day,  are  the  seed  which  the  great  vehicles 
of  thought,  the  printing-press,  journalism,  and  club  oratory, 
sow  all  over  the  face  of  the  earth,  and  cultivate  there  with 
a  scientific  husbandry  matured  and  perfected  by  our  know- 
ledge of  the  intellectual  past.  Illuminism,  Voltaireanism, 
Jansenism,  and  then  the  Jacobinic  frenzy  employed  these 
agencies  to  destroy  the  Christian  order  and  the  Christen- 
dom of  our  fathers.  Mazzini's  genius  welded  all  these 
agencies  into  one  mighty  force.  His  was  the  brain  which 
conceived,  Garibaldi's  was  the  arm  which  wielded,  this 
mighty  weapon  ;  both  were  taken  into  the  service  of  Ca- 
vour,  who  also  had  at  his  beck  the  veteran  army  and 
fleet  of  an  Italian  kingdom. 

These  were  the  forces  and  the  men  against  which  the 
old  Italian  political  and  social  order  was  expected  to  do 
battle.  But,  while  the  aggressors  knew  their  own  purpose 
thoroughly,  saw  clearly  the  goal  toward  which  their  course 
was  bent,  had  counted  their  resources  up  to  a  fraction,  and 
were  sure  to  be  a  unit  when  the  time  for  action  came,  and 
resolved  as  well  to  be  stopped  on  their  way  by  none  of  the 
old-time  forms  or  scruples,  their  adversaries  were  wrapped 
in  a  half-dreamy  consciousness  of  approaching  danger, 


FIKST  ACQUAINTANCE   WITH  PERUGIA.  103 

trusted  implicitly  for  the  preservation  of  what  was  most 
venerable  in  existing  institutions  to  some  intervention  of 
Providence  ;  whereas  that  Providence,  who  created  the  tre- 
mendous forces  of  free  human  agency,  will  have  communi- 
ties and  their  rulers  ever  wide  awake  to  foresee  dangers, 
and  ever  prepared  and  able  to  avoid  them  by  timely  and 
prompt  preventives.  They  had  no  unity  of  purpose  or  of 
counsels,  these  shepherds  of  the  peoples  whose  houses  were 
undermined  beneath  their  feet.  They  could  not  count  on 
each  other,  and  they  scarcely  counted  on  themselves. 

The  Holy  See,  aware  of  the  falling  off  among  its  faith- 
ful people  in  consequence  of  their  being  drawn  into  the 
net  of  the  secret  societies ;  aware  of  the  spread  of  revolu- 
tionary, anti-social,  and  anti-Christian  pamphlets  among  the 
people ;  alarmed  by  partial  risings  here  and  there,  by  the 
utterances  of  the  press  at  home  and  the  loud  and  undis- 
guised boastings  of  the  English  and  the  French  press,  had 
become  fully  alive  to  the  danger.  But  at  home  and  abroad 
every  precaution  taken  and  every  effort  toward  repression 
were  denounced  as  acts  of  treason  against  liberty,  progress, 
enlightenment,  and  modern  civilization. 

Perugia,  like  Bologna,  was  one  of  the  most  active 
centres  of  this  formidable  propagandism  and  the  agita- 
tion it  inevitably  tended  to  produce  ;  they  stirred  up  the 
most  powerful  patriotic  passions  combined  with  a  passion 
more  terrible  still— the  hatred  of  all  religion,  which  is, 
like  the  most  recently  invented  explosives,  an  uncontrol- 
lable force,  developing  with  a  suddenness  that  baffles  all 
calculations  and  precautions,  and  destroying  the  man  who 
uses  it  as  well  as  the  man  whose  destruction  is  aimed  at. 

Thither  in  1841  was  sent  Joachim  Pecci.  He  hastened 
to  this  new  field  of  labor  in  order  to  make  immediate 
preparations  for  the  expected  visit  to  Perugia  and  its  pro- 
vince of  Gregory  XVI.  For  this  much-abused  Pope,  whose 
every  act  was  misconstrued  and  misrepresented  by  the  anti- 
Catholic  press  of  England,  as  well  as  by  the  organs  of 
public  opinion  in  the  United  States,  was  most  anxious 
to  see  with  his  own  eyes  the  condition  of  his  people,  and 


IO4  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

to  remedy,  so  far  as  he  might,  the  abuses  and  evils  of  which 
they  could  justly  complain.  One  thing  at  that  time  dis- 
agreeably struck  strangers  visiting  Perugia.  The  old  me- 
diaeval road  leading  up  from  the  plain  to  the  city  was — as 
travellers  may  remember  the  old  road  at  Laon  running 
straight  up  to  the  fortifications  at  an  angle  of  forty-five 
degrees — almost  impracticable  for  vehicles  of  any  descrip- 
tion. This  was  a  serious  drawback  to  traffic. 

The  new  Delegate  saw  at  a  glance  what  was  to  be  done, 
and  lost  not  a  moment  in  doing  it.  Within  twenty  days  a 
broad  and  well-paved  thoroughfare  winding  up  the  hillside 
gave  access  to  the  place.  And  up  this  new  road  the  Sove- 
reign Pontiff  was  escorted  by  an  enthusiastic  multitude. 
It  was  thenceforward  known  as  the  Strada  Gregoriana. 

Monsignor  Pecci's  reputation  had  preceded  him  in  Um- 
bria:  people  expected  from  him  intelligent  and  salutary 
reforms.  The  opening  and  completion  of  this  new  road 
made  on  them  a  very  favorable  impression,  convincing 
them  that  their  governor  was  a  practical  man  who  had 
an  eye  to  the  popular  needs.  This  also  inspired  them  with 
no  little  fervor  in  preparing  for  the  reception  of  the  sove- 
reign. They  took  it  as  an  evidence  of  his  fatherly  interest 
in  their  welfare  that  he  had  sent  them  a  Delegate  who  had 
sincerely  at  heart  the  improvement  of  the  country  and  the 
happiness  of  the  people.  So  Gregory  XVI.  had  from  Pe- 
rugia a  right  hearty  welcome.  He  felt  its  warmth,  guessed 
to  whom  he  was  indebted  for  all  these  demonstrations  of 
respect  and  affection,  and  thanked  Monsignor  Pecci  for  them. 

Gregory  had  a  special  predilection  for  the  beautiful 
mediaeval  city,  and  the  greeting  given  him  by  its  people 
delighted  him  beyond  measure.  "  During  this  journey 
through  the  provinces,"  he  said  to  the  Delegate  in  pre- 
sence of  a  courtly  crowd,  "  I  have  been  in  some  places 
received  like  a  monk ;  in  several  others  with  the  ceremony 
due  to  a  cardinal ;  in  Ancona  and  Perugia  I  have  had  a 
reception  such  as  truly  becomes  a  sovereign."*  In  Citta 

*MS. :  "  Ncl    mio    viaggio  in  alcuni   luoghi   sono  stalo   ricevuto  da 


WISE  MEASURES  OF  REFORM. 


105 


della  Pieve  the  Pope  rested  for  three  days,  during  which 
he  placed  in  the  hands  of  the  Delegate  many  presents  and 
decorations  for  the  most  meritorious  citizens  of  Perugia 
and  Umbria.  "Before  long,  Monsignor,"  he  said,  "and  as 
soon  as  I  shall  have  returned  to  Rome,  I  shall  also  remem- 
ber you." 

But  the  Delegate  did  not  content  himself  with  follow- 
ing the  Pope  to  the  principal  cities  of  Umbria  and  sharing 
in  the  triumphal  welcome  everywhere  given  to  the  Holy 
Father.  No  sooner  had  the  latter  left  Umbria  for  Rome 
than  the  Delegate  began  in  good  earnest  the  work  he  had 
set  himself  to  accomplish.  After  doing  what  was  of  most 
pressing  urgency  for  the  capital,  he  resolved  to  visit  every 
commune  of  the  province  in  person,  examining  closely  into 
every  detail  of  local  administration,  informing  himself  ex- 
actly of  the  needs  of  each  locality  and  the  grievances  com- 
plained of,  correcting  as  he  proceeded  inveterate  abuses, 
removing  guilty  or  incapable  officials,  and  taking  note  of 
the  reforms  to  be  submitted  to  the  central  government  in 
Rome. 

His  presence  was  everywhere  hailed  with  real  satisfac- 
tion by  the  people.  What  he  did  on  the  spot,  and  what 
he  promised  to  obtain  from  superior  authority,  contributed 
largely  to  remove  well-founded  popular  discontent  and  to 
appease  the  agitation  fomented  by  the  secret  societies. 
He  was  very  firm  in  putting  down  these  pernicious  or- 
ganizations. But  he  was  not  satisfied  with  repression ;  he 
left  nothing  undone  to  take  away  from  these  conspirators 
against  Church  and  State  the  very  reason  of  their  existence 
by  diminishing  the  burdens  of  the  people,  by  fostering — as 
he  had  done  in  Benevento — industry,  agriculture,  and  com- 
merce, by  securing  an  impartial,  inexpensive,  and  prompt 
administration  of  justice,  thereby  making  the  people  love 
and  respect  the  law  and  its  ministers.  Meanwhile  he  was 
inexorable  in  punishing  lawlessness  and  all  disturbance  of 
the  public  peace. 

Frate,  in  molti  altn  convenientcmente,  ma  da  Cardinale  :  in  Ancona  e 
Perugia  veramente  da  Sovrano." 


106  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

In  this  way,  within  the  space  of  one  twelvemonth, 
Monsignor  Pecci  succeeded  in  effecting  most  important 
and  beneficial  changes  in  every  department  of  the  pub- 
lic administration.  The  communal  or  town  councils  were 
entirely  remodelled  ;  to  cut  off  all  pretexts  for  delays  in 
terminating  law-suits,  all  the  courts  of  Perugia  were  united 
in  one  great  building,  and  every  door  was  closed  against 
the  ruinous  custom  of  adjourning  and  procrastinating.  So 
active  was  he  in  removing  all  causes  of  public  discontent, 
and  in  repressing  and  punishing  private  wrong-doing,  that 
there  came  a  time  ivhcn  t/u  prisons  of  Perugia  did  not  con- 
tain a  single  criminal. 

Moreover,  to  encourage  thrift  among  the  laboring  class- 
es, and  to  provide  funds  at  a  low  interest  for  industrious 
tradesmen  and  farmers,  he  exerted  himself  strenuously  to 
establish  the  Perugia  Savings-Bank,  contributing  a  gene- 
rous share  to  the  necessary  capital. 

But  even  then,  at  the  very  outset  of  his  public  career, 
the  young  statesman,  who  sought  to  grasp  the  whole  prob- 
lem of  Italy's  unrest  and  aspirations,  clearly  discerned 
the  fact  that  there  could  be  for  the  peoples  of  the  Penin- 
sula neither  true  political  unity  nor  real  and  stable  social 
progress  and  prosperity  without  a  thorough  moral  renova- 
tion accomplished  by  true  religion. 

Religion,  to  fit  a  people  for  a  new  phase  of  existence,  a 
new  period  of  civilization  and  national  greatness,  must  de- 
scend deeply  into  minds  and  hearts,  implant  there  strong 
convictions,  and  the  generous  impulses  to  great  deeds  and 
great  sacrifices  which  can  alone  spring  from  strong  con- 
victions. 

All  these  springs  of  greatness  in  private  and  in  public 
life  had  been  either  entirely  obliterated  in  a  great  portion 
of  the  Italian  people  or  weakened  more  or  less  in  the 
remainder  by  the  education  given  to  the  nation  by  the 
teachings  of  French  infidelity,  by  the  terrible  influence  of 
the  long-prevalent  revolutionary  Jacobinism,  and  by  the 
open  or  secret  action  of  the  anti-Christian  societies.  The 
most  active  and  energetic  elements  of  public  life  in  Italy 


RECALLED  TO  ROME. 


107 


in  1841-42  were  the  men  in  whose  souls  and  lives  the  one 
absorbing  passion  was  to  overthrow  religion  and  utterly  to 
discredit  among  the  masses  the  principles  and  practices  of 
ancestral  morality. 

A  scholar  himself,  and  passionately  devoted  to  the  pur- 
suit of  the  highest  intellectual  culture,  Joachim  Pecci  be- 
lieved that  one  of  the  most  potent  means  of  regenerating 
Italy  was  to  give  her  leading  classes  a  thoroughly  religious 
as  well  as  a  thoroughly  superior  education.  From  them, 
he  thought,  true  enlightenment  would  descend  downward 
in  society,  helping  the  clergy  and  the  most  popular  teach- 
ing orders  of  men  and  women  to  co-operate  with  Christian 
parents  in  thoroughly  educating  the  children  of  the  lower 
and  middle  classes.  He  therefore  used  all  his  authority 
and  influence  to  open  schools  wherever  there  were  none, 
to  encourage  and  improve  them  where  they  existed.  He 
especially  exerted  himself  to  give  a  new  life  to  the  College 
Rosi  of  Spello,  the  Pope  appointing  him  Apostolic  Visitor 
of  the  same.  Its  finances  were  placed  on  a  prosperous  and 
secure  footing ;  a  new  staff  of  able  professors  were  attached 
to  the  institution  ;  its  studies  were  thoroughly  reorganized, 
and  every  precaution  taken  for  the  maintenance  of  that  se- 
vere discipline  without  which  there  can  be  no  steady  pro- 
gress in  learning. 

The  Delegate  was  planning  much  more  for  the  intellec- 
tual and  moral  advancement  of  Umbria,  for  the  develop- 
ment of  the  material  resources  of  that  beautiful  and  classic 
land,  when  Gregory  XVI.  recalled  him  and  prepared  to 
send  him  on  a  mission  of  far  higher  importance  and  wider 
utility. 

Thus  was  fulfilled  the  Pontiff's  promise  made  at  Citta 
della  Pieve :  "  Before  long  I  shall  remember  you  also." 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

ARCHBISHOP    PECCI     STUDIES      THE     WORKING     OF     FREE 
CONSTITUTIONAL  GOVERNMENT  IN   BELGIUM. 

[1843  to  1846] 

young  prelate,  still  in  his  thirty-third  year,  was 
not  a  little  surprised  to  learn  from  the  Holy  Father 
that  he  had  been  chosen  to  fill  the  post  of  Apostolic  Nun- 
cio in  the  court  of  Brussels.  This  was  in  the  beginning 
of  January,  1843.  On  tne  27tn  of  that  month  the  Pope 
nominated  him  to  the  dignity  of  titular  Archbishop  of 
Damietta.  On  February  19  his  episcopal  consecration 
took  place  in  the  ancient  church  of  San  Lorenzo  in  Pa- 
nispcrna,  erected  on  the  spot  where,  according  to  the  con- 
stant tradition  of  Christian  Rome,  the  heroic  deacon  of 
the  second  century  was  tortured  to  death.  The  conse- 
crating prelate  was  Cardinal  Lambruschini,  the  Secretary 
of  State,  who  took  a  fatherly  interest  in  Monsignor  Pecci, 
on  whose  noble  character  and  splendid  abilities  he  had  set 
a  high  estimate. 

A  month  later,  on  March  19,  the  Archbishop-Nuncio 
set  out  for  his  destination.  Traversing  France  rapidly,  he 
spent  a  few  days  in  Namur  with  his  old  friend  and  class- 
mate in  the  Roman  College,  Canon  Montpellier,  later 
Bishop  of  Li£ge,  and  one  of  the  most  distinguished  pre- 
lates of  Belgium.  In  Brussels  he  was  warmly  welcomed 
by  Monsignor  (afterward  Cardinal)  Fornari,  who  had  been 
his  professor  of  canon  law  in  the  College  of  Nobles,  and 
who  had  just  been  promoted  to  the  Nunciature  of  Paris. 

The  veteran  diplomat  was  able  to  give  his  old  pupil 
precious  information  regarding  the  duties  he  was  expected 
to  fulfil  in  Belgium — duties  which  the  division  of  religious 

and   political  parties,  and  the   perpetual  intrigues  of  the 

1 08 


CONSTITUTIONAL  GOVERNMENT  IN  BELGIUM.     1 09 

already  numerous  and   powerful   secret  societies,  rendered 
extremely  delicate  and  difficult. 

In  the  separation  of  Belgium  from  Holland  in  1830  the 
main  directing  force  had  been  the  love  of  religious  liberty 
in  the  Catholic  population,  to  whom  the  House  of  Orange 
refused  obstinately  the  freedom  of  conscience  stipulated 
by  the  Congress  of  Vienna.  The  union  of  the  provinces, 
at  best,  had  been  a  forced  and  unnatural  one.  There  were 
irreconcilable  antipathies  of  race  as  well  as  of  religion — the 
memory  of  long  historical  antagonism,  rendering  the  yoke 
of  Holland  still  more  galling  to  the  Celtic  Belgians,  who, 
in  race  and  language  and  creed,  had  more  affinity  to  their 
powerful  French  neighbors.  But  it  were  hard  to  say  which 
was  the  greater  error,  that  of  the  Congress  of  Vienna  de- 
ciding by  a  stroke  of  the  pen  the  political  and  religious 
destiny  of  five  or  six  millions  of  Catholics,  or  that  of  that 
other  Congress  of  1830-31  imposing  on  emancipated  Bel- 
gium a  form  of  constitutional  government  to  which  the 
people  were  strangers.  The  political  quacks  who  think 
that  the  constitutional  forms  which  suit  the  English  race 
at  home  or  in  the  United  States  ought  also  to  suit  Bel- 
gium, or  France,  or  Spain,  or  Italy,  forget  that  the  institu- 
tions of  a  country  are  the  natural  growth  and  outcome  of 
a  people's  habits  and  social  life.  Where,  as  in  Great  Britain 
and  in  the  American  Union,  the  form  of  government,  with 
the  laws  and  the  judiciary,  has  ever  been  a  part  of  the  peo- 
ple's existence,  it  needs  no  political  education  to  train  the 
masses  to  the  knowledge  and  exercise  of  their  political 
rights.  They  are  matters  of  course,  as  familiar  to  the 
farmer  in  the  country  as  his  implements  and  methods  of 
agriculture  ;  as  handy  to  the  craftsman  in  the  cities  as  the 
rules  and  practice  of  his  trade.  How  different  among  the 
Latin  nations  of  Continental  Europe  and  their  offshoots 
was  the  use  of  the  suffrage,  whether  open  or  secret,  in 
electing  to  municipal  or  national  offices !  What  a  farce 
the  ballot  was  from  the  beginning,  and  is  still,  in  countries 
we  might  name!  And  what  oppression  is  practised,  in 
the  name  of  liberty  and  under  the  sham  of  constitutional 


I  10  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

forms,  by  peoples  among  whom  anti- Christian  teachings 
destroy  the  religious  and  moral  sense,  with  the  elementary 
and  essential  ideas  of  individual  right,  making  what  they 
call  free  government  the  most  hideous  intolerance  and  the 
downright  and  unrestrained  proscription  of  all  opinions, 
convictions,  and  acts  which  differ  from  their  own  false  and 
narrow  notions ! 

From  the  very  birth  of  constitutional  government  in 
Belgium  the  country  became,  like  the  little  Republic  of 
Geneva,  a  hot-bed  in  which  sprang  up  a  luxuriant  growth 
of  secret  associations  conspiring  against  the  monarchical 
institutions  of  the  Continent.  All  political  exiles,  all  so- 
cialistic and  anarchical  dreamers,  found  a  safe  refuge  there, 
and  there  wrote  and  published,  plotted  and  planned. 

Belgium,  Catholic  Belgium,  became  especially  the  para- 
dise of  this  Occult  Force,  not  of  the  purely  or  professed 
benevolent  and  kindly  associations  which  go  by  different 
names  wherever  the  English  language  prevails,  but  of 
those  bodies  of  conspirators  against  Church  and  State, 
against  the  entire  social  order  inherited  from  the  Chris- 
tendom of  the  past,  who  are  the  legal  and  legitimate  de- 
scendants of  Weishaupt  and  his  Illuminism.  English  and 
American  societies  long  and  blindly  refused  to  acknow- 
ledge the  evidence  offered  them  that  this  Occult  Force  on 
the  Continent  of  Europe,  as  well  as  in  Spanish  and  Portu- 
guese America,  was  a  vast  and  mighty  conspiracy  against 
God. 

Now  our  people  have  opened  their  eyes,  and  severed 
every  tie  of  brotherhood,  not  of  solidarity,  with  these 
banded  enemies  of  all  religion  and  of  all  society,  since 
without  religion  society  is  impossible. 

The  reader,  knowing  the  character,  the  creed,  the  aims, 
principles,  and  policy  of  this  mighty  organization  in  Eu- 
rope, will  not  be  surprised  at  the  alarm  and  consternation 
of  the  Belgian  Catholics  when  they  found,  from  the  very 
first  day  when  Belgium  elected  her  representatives  to  Par- 
liament, that  they  had  for  principal  adversaries  the  mem- 
bers of  that  body. 


THE  KING  OF  THE  BELGIANS.  \  \  \ 

We  have  often  heard  the  Belgian  hierarchy,  as  well  as 
Belgian  Catholic  statesmen,  accused  of  bigotry,  intolerance, 
obscurantism,  because  of  the  stand  they  took  and  main- 
tained in  favor  of  denominational  education,  as  against  the 
godless  schools  patronized  and  advocated  by  Frere-Orban 
and  his  brother-sectarians  in  the  past  and  present. 

But  the  programmes  of  late  years  published  both  in 
France  and  in  Belgium  by  the  Occult  Force  triumphant 
must  convince  any  impartial  reader,  if  he  be  a  Christian 
man,  that  the  battle  fought  in  constitutional  Belgium  from 
the  beginning  was  between  the  supporters  of  Christianity, 
the  advocates  of  a  thorough  religious  education,  on  the  one 
hand,  and  the  conspirators  against  religion,  who  wanted  to 
get  possession  of  the  youth  of  the  kingdom  and  extin- 
guish in  their  souls  all  knowledge  or  all  love  of  the  ancient 
faith  of  Christendom. 

Such  was  the  battle  which  raged  in  Belgium  when,  in 
late  March,  1843,  Archbishop  Pecci  presented  to  the  Court 
of  Brussels  his  credentials  as  ambassador  of  the  Holy  See. 

Who  was  the  king  to  whom  these  letters  were  presented? 

Leopold  of  Saxe-Coburg,  King  of  the  Belgians,  has  al- 
ready had  biographers  and  historians,  official  and  unofficial, 
to  tell  the  story  of  his  life  and  reign.  His  character  is  as 
well  known  to  American  as  it  is  to  European  readers.  The 
statesmen  who  had  a  voice  in  Continental  affairs  when  the 
Great  Powers  decided  who  would  be  the  constitutional  head 
of  the  new  kingdom  decided  in  favor  of  this  prince,  be- 
cause he  was  a  liberal  in  politics,  a  nominal  Protestant  in 
religion,  a  member  of  this  same  organization,  who  had  been 
married  to  the  heiress  to  the  British  crown,  who  was  uncle 
to  Queen  Victoria  and  her  husband's  near  relative,  and 
who  was  soon  to  become  the  son-in-law  of  the  French  King 
Louis  Philippe.  These  two  men  were  both  cast  in  the 
same  mould.  What  the  Belgian  sovereign  was  the  public 
has  long  ago  learned  from  the  published  memoirs  of  his  inti- 
mate friend  and  chief  counsellor,  Baron  Stockmar,  as  well 
as  that  of  Prince  Albert  and  his  wife. 

King  Leopold,  thus  placed  on  the  throne  of  Belgium 


1  I  2  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

as  a  checkmate  to  the  Ultramontane  tendencies  of  the  men 
who  had  created  free  Belgium,  and  a  man  acceptable  to 
the  numerous,  powerful,  and  sworn  enemies  of  the  Church 
in  that  Catholic  country,  threw  the  whole  weight  of  his 
influence  from  the  beginning  into  the  scale  against  denomi- 
national education. 

Those  among  us  in  'America  who  have  always  looked 
upon  our  public-school  system  as  unimpeachable,  because 
it  freely  educates  the  children  of  all  citizens,  rich  and  poor, 
without  any  regard  to  creed,  will  not  see  in  the  conduct  of 
King  Leopold  anything  that  is  blameworthy.  But  we  in 
America  are  beginning  to  see  that  the  public-school  system 
was  from  the  first  open  to  two  serious  and  unanswerable 
objections.  It  levied  a  heavy  tax  on  those  who  objected 
conscientiously  to  schools  where  no  religion  whatever  was 
taught,  and  refused  to  grant  any  share  of  the  school  fund  to 
denominations  who  insisted  on  a  religious  teaching  in  their 
schools  ;  and  it  tended  practically  (as  it  has  now,  confessed- 
ly, ended  in  doing)  to  turn  out  young  men  and  women  in- 
different to  all  religious  principle  and  practice — men  and 
women  all  the  more  dangerous  to  the  community  that 
their  trained  intellect  and  acquired  knowledge  are  a  ter- 
rible agency  in  the  service  of  their  passions,  whereas  no 
fear  of  God  is  there  to  restrain  them  from  evil  courses  or 
to  encourage  them  to  well-doing. 

Besides,  in  a  country  like  the  United  States,  where  so 
many  sects  exist  side  by  side,  with  equal  rights  before  the 
law,  if  the  majority  must  decide  the  school  question  like 
all  others  of  public  importance,  the  minority  must  perforce 
submit.  Still,  that  minority  will  deem  it  oppression  to  be 
taxed  for  an  institution  which  they  cannot  appro've  of  or 
profit  by  without  violating  their  conscience.  But  where, 
as  in  Belgium  in  1843,  tne  immense  majority  were  Catho- 
lics, and  only  demanded  to  be  left  free  in  educating  their 
own  children  as  conscience  dictated,  it  was  intolerable 
in  the  minority  to  impose  on  them  a  school  system  con- 
demned by  the  Church,  and  which  both  conscience  and 
experience  proved  to  be  blameworthy  and  pernicious. 


His  Holiness  Leo  XIII. 


ARCHBISHOP  PECCI  A  T  BRUSSELS.  \  \  $ 

Yet  the  English-speaking  world,  through  its  organ,  the 
public  press,  has  invariably  sided  with  the  tyrannical  mino- 
rity, and  held  up  the  struggles  of  the- Catholics  of  Belgium 
and  their  clergy  as  the  battle  of  ignorant  and  intolerant 
fanaticism  against  enlightenment,  intellectual  progress,  and 
modern  civilization. 

And  the  struggle  goes  on  still  in  the  year  1887.  It  is 
still  the  contest  between  two  antagonistic  and  diametrically 
opposite  forces,  that  of  religion  on  the  one  hand  and  that 
of  irreligion  on  the  other,  for  the  possession  of  education, 
the  mightiest  means  ever  devised  for  the  moral  elevation 
or  the  utter  destruction  of  the  human  race. 

Had  not  the  political  battles  of  to-day  in  Belgium  been 
fought  on  the  same  ground  and  for  the  same  vital  issues  as 
in  1843  and  the  preceding  decade,  we  should  apologize  to 
the  reader  for  what  might  appear  a  digression  of  unwar- 
rantable length.  But  Archbishop  Pecci,  as  Nuncio  to  Brus- 
sels, found  himself  in  presence  of  the  same  hostile  camps 
which  at  this  moment,  and  from  his  elevation  to  the  Papal 
chair,  occupy  the  attention  of  Leo  XIII. 

On  his  first  appearance  at  court  the  new  Ambassador  of 
the  Holy  See  made  a  most  favorable  impression.  It  was 
evident  to  all  that  he  was  an  accomplished  scholar,  a  well- 
bred  and  courteous  gentleman,  whose  conversation,  while 
carefully  avoiding  political  subjects  and  diplomatic  ques- 
tions, could  take  the  widest  range.  His  learning,  his  edu- 
cation in  the  capital  of  Christendom,  the  historic  centre  of 
art  culture,  science,  and  letters,  enabled  him  to  speak  on  all 
topics  with  equal  ease  and  authority.  He  had  also  inherit- 
ed not  a  little  of  Roman  wit.  None,  however,  felt  its  edge 
save  such  as,  in  his  presence,  presumed  to  attack  religion  or 
trespass  against  propriety.  For  such  offenders  he  had  little 
pity.  And  more  than  one  witty  saying  of  his  survives  in 
the  court  circles  of  the  Belgian  capital. 

Happily  for  the  court  of  Brussels,  for-  the  entire  Belgian 
people,  indeed,  the  queen  was  one  whose  life  was  a  mirror 
of  all  womanly  virtues.  Even  over  the  mind  of  her  scep- 
tical husband  she  wielded  the  influence  .which  deep -faith 


I  1 4  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

accompanied  by  saintly  deeds  exercises  over  all  men  in 
whom  the  moral  sense  is  not  quite  extinct.  Fervently 
practising  the  religion  taught  her  by  her  exemplary  mo- 
ther, she  was  also  devoted  to  all  its  interests  and  would 
have  it  preserved  to  her  subjects  as  the  dearest  of  all  trea- 
sures. Her  own  education  having  been  acquired  amid  the 
scepticism  of  French  court  society  and  the  practical  con- 
tradiction, in  French  families,  between  the  faith  of  one 
parent  and  the  actions  and  professions  of  the  other,  she 
prized  at  its  full  value  the  boon  of  Christian  education 
for  every  household,  every  child  in  her  kingdom. 

The  Belgian  archbishops  and  bishops,  in  their  unceas- 
ing struggle  for  this  most  precious  fruit  of  the  liberty  of 
conscience  guaranteed  by  the  constitution,  could  always 
count  on  the  sympathy  of  the  queen  and  her  secret  ad- 
vocacy of  their  sacred  cause,  even  when  prudence  would 
not  permit  her  to  side  with  them  openly.  To  the  Nuncio 
her  counsels  were  also  of  great  assistance  in  the  selection 
.of  a  line  of  conduct  which  should  protect  the  inalienable 
/rights  of  the  Church  without  bringing  her  authority  into 
..conflict  with  the  principles  of  responsible  government. 

At  any  rate,  whjJe  studying  the  position  of  the  Belgian 
Catholics  and  deyjsiijg  the  best  means  to  protect  their  in- 
terests, Archbishop  jPecci  applied  himself  to  the  labor  of 
visiting  the  great -Catholic  schools  which  had  rendered  the 
•  country  famous  in  ;the  past.  Instinctively  the  Belgian 
clergy  felt  that;,  ,in  the  struggle  for  retaining  under  their 
.own  .control  the  education  of  the  youth  of  the  kingdom, 
the  .fitst  (Condition  toward  success  was  to  make  their 
^schools  superior  to  those  directed  by  their  antagonists. 
There  could  be  for  the  state  no  decent  pretext  for  inter- 
fering with  educational  establishments  which  did  the  work 
they  had  to  do  better  than  any  other  of  the  kind,  and 
which  did  more  of  it. 

This  must  be  the  law  for  denominational  schools  the 
whole  world  over.  The  Belgian  hierarchy  and  their  edu- 
cationists made  it  a  rule  for  themselves. 

In   the   capital   itself   the   College  of   St.    Michael,  be- 


THE  CATHOLIC  COLLEGE  OF  ST.  MICHAEL.  115 

ing  immediately  under  the  eyes  of  king,  ministers,  and 
members  of  the  Legislature,  was  more  likely  than  any 
other  to  be  taken  by  friends  and  foes  as  a  measure  of 
comparison  in  judging  the  excellence  of  the  other  Catholic 
schools  and  their  methods.  The  Nuncio  took  a  lively  in- 
terest in  this  important  institution,  visited  it  frequently, 
won  the  confidence  and  affection  of  professors  and  pupils, 
and  by  his  tact  as  well  as  by  his  zeal  spurred  them  on  to 
aim  at  the  highest  standards  of  proficiency.  Such  stan- 
dards had  ever  been  his  own.  On  them,  in  every  sphere  of 
learning,  he  had  regulated  his  own  studies.  And  no  one 
could  converse  with  him  long,  or  listen  to  him  on  public 
occasions  when  he  had  to  honor  his  office  and  his  reputa- 
tion by  some  display  of  scholarly  culture,  without  perceiv- 
ing, in  the  exquisite  finish  of  whatever  came  from  his  lips 
or  his  pen,  how  elevated  were  the  literary  and  scientific 
ideals  which  he  had  successfully  pursued. 

Such  a  man,  and  he  a  young  man,  raised  already  to 
such  eminence  by  these  rare  gifts,  acquired  as  well  as  na- 
tural, Had  invariably  great  influence  over  the  studious 
youth  whom  he  addressed — over  the  most  cultivated  audi- 
ences, indeed. 

From  the  visits  he  paid  to  the  College  of  St.  Michael, 
and  the  active  interest  he  took  in  its  advancement,  dates 
a  new  period  in  the  existence  of  that  great  diocesan  school. 

But  side  by  side  with  that  college  the  "  Liberals  "  of 
Belgium — that  is,  the  adepts  of  the  secret  societies,  who 
masked  their  real  purpose  in  the  beginning,  and  won  over 
to  their  views  very  many  unsuspecting  and  not  very  serious 
Catholics,  fascinated  by  the  spell  word  of  "liberalism" — had 
succeeded  in  creating  an  undenominational  school  of  higher 
studies,  with  the  name  of  "  University  of  Brussels."  This 
was  solely  under  state  control.  The  standards,  the  meth- 
ods, the  irreligious  spirit  of  the  French  university  and  its 
dependent  schools  were  the  model  after  which  the  Belgian 
Liberals  framed  this  great  national  institution.  National 
they  affirmed  it  was,  although  repudiated  by  those  who 
had  a  right  to  speak  and  to  act  for  the  immense  majority 


I  1 6  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

of  the  nation  ;  and  national  they  persisted  in  calling  it  and 
persevered  in  making  it,  by  supporting  it  with  the  moneys 
taken  from  the  people  indiscriminately,  and  infusing  into 
its  teaching  a  spirit  adverse  to  the  religious  character  of 
the  Belgians,  but  one  which  they  hoped — and  not  with- 
out reason — to  see  in  due  time  the  spirit  of  the  Belgian 
masses. 

What  cannot  education  do,  even  when  directed  to  the 
worst  ends,  if  carried  on  for  a  few  generations  by  the  public 
authorities,  and  with  all  the  agencies  and  resources  that  a 
government  can  command,  and  if  assisted  by  the  omnipre- 
sent modern  press? 

It  was  a  novel  and  a  momentous  contest,  that  which  was 
carried  on  in  Belgium,  and  the  main  strategic  position  of 
which  was  that  same  University  of  Brussels. 

In  1789,  just  as  the  Estates  General  of  France  were 
doing  their  work  of  social  destruction  in  liberalizing  the 
kingdom  of  Saint  Louis,  the  Emperor  Joseph  II.,  then 
sovereign  of  the  Low  Countries,  was  bending  all  the  re- 
sources of  his  sceptic  intellect  and  of  the  imperial  power 
to  dechristianize  education  in  Belgium.  His  attempt  to 
create  such  an  anti  Catholic  school  as  the  modern  Univer- 
sity of  Brussels  made  the  Belgian  Catholics  rise  up  like 
one  man  and  resist  him  with  force  of  arms.  When,  in  1830, 
William  of  Orange  tampered  in  the  same  way  with  the 
rights  of  the  Belgian  people  to  educate  their  children  in 
accordance  with  their  ancestral  faith,  the  resistance  to  his 
will  grew,  until  it  burst  into  open  and  triumphant  insur- 
rection. 

But  the  men  who  had  drawn  up  the  constitution  of  1830 
knew  well — some  of  them,  at  least — that  they  were  shaping 
an  instrument  which,  under  the  cover  of  protecting  all  the 
liberties  of  the  nation,  would  help  the  unbelieving  minority 
toward  confiscating  the  most  precious  liberty  of  all — that 
of  conscience  in  the  right  to  educate  the  young. 

The  University  of  Brussels  had  been  established  in  the 
very  dawn  of  Belgian  independence.  The  men,  the  heroic 
Catholics,  who  had  been  its  parents  did  not  suspect  the 


ARCHBISHOP  PECCI  IN  LOUVAIN.  \  \  7 

designs  of  the  promoters  of  this  early  scheme  of  higher 
studies.  The  nature  and  tendency  of  the  great  central 
institution  were  clearly  perceived  only  when  it  was  an 
existing  fact — a  formidable  organism  working  under  the 
sanction  of  the  laws  and  drawing  its  support  from  the 
public  treasury. 

What  were  the  leaders  of  the  Catholic  majority  to  do  ? 
All  efforts  made  to  bring  back  the  University  of  Brussels 
to  conformity  with  Catholic  principles  and  practice,  to 
make  its  teaching  such  as  could  be  accepted  with  safety 
by  Catholic  parents  for  their  children,  were  defeated  by 
the  resistance  of  the  Chambers  and  that  of  the  king,  sup- 
ported as  these  were  by  the  liberal  press  of  the  country 
and  by  that  of  France,  Germany,  England,  and  the  United 
States. 

In  1834  the  archbishops  and  bishops  set  about  restor- 
ing the  University  of  Louvain,  which  had  had  a  world- 
wide reputation  in  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries. 
They  could  not  count  on  state  aid.  But  they  knew  their 
people  were  with  them,  and  they  relied  on  God  and  them- 
selves in  undertaking  this  unequal  contest  with  the  united 
forces  of  Continental  Liberalism. 

Archbishop  Pecci,  soon  after  his  arrival  in  Brussels,* 
had  an  opportunity  of  visiting  Louvain,-  of  beholding  in 
the  restored  University  the  elite  of  the  kingdom,  and  of 
associating  himself  with  the  archbishops  and  bishops  in 
their  laudable  endeavor  to  raise  their  great  national  school 
to  the  height  it  occupied  in  former  ages,  and  to  the  un- 
questionable superiority  demanded  by  modern  culture. 

On  Thursday,  July  27,  1843,  tne  University  of  Louvain 
held  a  solemn  academical  session  for  the  purpose  of  con- 
ferring degrees  in  theology  and  canon  law.  All  the  repre- 
sentative men  of  Catholic  Belgium  were  present,  headed  by 
the  Cardinal-Archbishop  of  Mechlin.  The  Nuncio  was  in- 
vited to  address  the  graduates,  and  was  delighted  to  find 
among  the  visitors  the  venerable  De  Forbin-Janson,  Bishop 

*"  Cenni  Storici,"  c.  i.  n.  5  ;  account  extracted  from  L'Anii  de  fOrdre 
of  March,  1878. 


1  1 8  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

of  Nancy,  lately  returned  from  his  apostolic  missions  in 
America,  where  many  still  living,  from  Quebec  to  New 
York,  from  St.  Louis  to  New  Orleans,  treasure  the  recol- 
lection of  his  eloquence,  his  munificence,  and  his  saintly 
life.  It  was  a  deep  consolation  to  this  son  of  the  Crusaders 
of  old  to  witness  in  Louvain  the  manifestations  of  that 
living  faith  which  refused  to  yield  to  the  disciples  of  Vol- 
taire and  the  apostles  of  modern  scientism  the  training  of 
the  youth  of  Christendom. 

Of  course  the  representative  of  the  Holy  See  was 
received  in  Louvain  with  the  cordial  respect  due  to  his 
character  and  mission.  The  rector  and  the  members  of 
the  university  faculties  waited  on  him  with  an  address 
of  welcome,  to  which  he  replied  in  suitable  and  graceful 
terms.  Then  came,  in  the  university  library,  a  welcome 
from  the  students.  One  of  them,  a  student  in  the  law- 
school,  who  at  present  fills  the  office  of  judge  in  the  high 
court  of  Namur,*  delivered  a  discourse  in  the  name  of 
his  fellow-students.  To  this  the  Nuncio  replied :  "  I  am 
happy,"  he  said,  "  to  witness  here  the  rapid  progress 
made  by  an  institution  that  owes  in  a  special  manner  its 
birth  to  the  revered  clergy  of  Belgium,  whose  illustrious 
head  I  see  before  me.  This  institution  is  also  the  crea- 
tion of  its  worthy  rector,  of  his  learned  staff  of  professors, 
of  the  whole  body  of  Belgian  Catholics.  .  .  .  Yes,  the  tra- 
ditions of  the  ancient  University  of  Louvain  are  still  a 
living  thing ;  and  to  you,  gentlemen,  it  belongs  to  per- 
petuate them  by  your  labors.  You  have  already  shown 
that  you  know  how  to  continue  the  work  of  those  who 
were  here  before  you  ;  henceforth  your  Church  and  your 
country  also  know  what  they  can  expect  from  you.  Fol- 
low persistently  the  path  you  are  pursuing;  it  will  lead, 
doubt  it  not,  to  the  most  fruitful  results.  For  my  part, 
I  cannot  help  being  deeply  moved  by  the  sight  of  this 
assemblage  of  noble  and  dear  young  men  whose  souls  are 
aflame  with  the  love  of  the  true  wisdom  and  with  devotion 
to  Holy  Church.  This  brilliant  youth — I  cannot  question 

*  M.  Capelle. 


THE  NUNCIO'S  DIFFICULT  'POSITION.  119 

it — shall  be  one  day  the  happiness  and  the  honor  of  Bel- 
gium." 

The  journal  from  which  these  details  are  taken  goes 
on  to  say  that  in  the  course  of  the  afternoon  Monsignor 
Pecci  visited  and  inspected  carefully  the  colleges  and  other 
buildings  belonging  to  the  university.  He  could  not  con- 
ceal the  extreme  satisfaction  he  felt  at  seeing  all  belonging 
to  this  great  Catholic  school  in  such  a  flourishing  condi- 
tion. 

The  position  of  a  representative  of  the  Holy  See  near 
a  court,  where  powerful  and  contrary  currents  of  influence 
were  apt  to  carry  even  the  strongest  and  best-intentioned 
beyond  the  strict  boundaries  marked  by  conscience,  and 
where  weak  men  are  entirely  lifted  off  their  feet  to  drift 
helplessly  with  the  tide,  is  one  which  demands  in  him  who 
fills  it  the  rarest  gifts  of  the  practical  intellect  and  the  up; 
right  will. 

The  kingdom  of  Belgium  was  under  the  protection  of 
the  Great  Powers ;  its  constitution,  hurriedly  framed  in  the 
hour  of  national  triumph  and  enthusiasm,  was  accepted  by 
a  Catholic  people  without  too  close  a  scrutiny,  in  their 
impatient  haste  to  become  an  independent  people  with 
a  regularly  constituted  government  acknowledged  by  other 
nations.  Be  it  said  to  the  eternal  honor  of  the  Belgian 
Catholics  in  sanctioning  by  their  assent  the  principle  of 
absolute  freedom  for  all  forms  of  religious  worship,  they 
fancied  they  were  following  the  example  first  set  by  the 
people  of  the  United  States,  and  which  their  practical 
good  sense  and  true  love  of  liberty  have  carried  out  faith- 
fully. 

But  the  United  States,  happily  for  its  people,  never 
had,  as  a  political  party — in  a  minority,  indeed,  but  active, 
determined,  and  perfectly  organized — the  anti-Christian 
sects  and  conspirators  who  in  Continental  Europe  cloak 
their  principles  and  designs  under  the  fair  name  of  Liberal- 
ism or  Freemasonry.  If  this  party  were  not  masters  of  the 
situation  in  1843,  they  were  powerful  and  united  enough 
to  compel  any  party  in  the  kingdom  to  compromise  with 


I  2O  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

them  or  to  see  the  administration  of  public  affairs  brought 
to  a  dead-lock. 

Monsignor  Pecci,  knowing  well  that  a  constitutional 
sovereign  has  to  govern  through  his  ministers,  and  that  a 
ministry  is  only  the  instrument  of  the  most  powerful  party, 
could  only  exert  himself  to  win  the  confidence  of  King 
Leopold  I.  as  well  as  the  good  opinion  of  his  ministers. 
Once  trusted  and  consulted  by  the  king  and  taken  into 
the  confidence  of  his  advisers,  he  might  prevent  much  evil, 
albeit  much  positive  good  could  not  be  achieved  for  the 
time  being. 

That  his  youth,  his  modest  and  dignified  presence,  his 
courtly  and  reserved  address  did  win  him  golden  opinions 
from  the  very  beginning  we  have  ample  testimony  from 
contemporary  writers  as  well  as  from  the  lips  of  those  who 
bore  a  personal  share  in  the  events  we  are  narrating  or 
pointing  to.  The  young  Archbishop-Nuncio  was  an  ac- 
complished scholar  and  diplomat  ;  but  he  was  also — every- 
body saw  and  declared  it — a  priest  of  unblemished  life. 
Such  a  character  exercises  irresistible  ascendency  even  in 
royal  courts,  even  in  the  councils  of  the  most  characterless 
politicians. 

"  The  affability  of  Monsignor  Pecci,"  says  on  this  head 
a  Belgian  biographer,  "  his  exquisite  tact,  and  his  deep 
learning  forced  Leopold  I.,  who  was  a  discerning  connois- 
seur of  men,  to  form  a  very  high  opinion  of  him.  He 
endeavored  to  make  of  him  a  counsellor  and  a  friend, 
and  induced  him  to  be  a  frequent  visitor  at  court.  The 
king  often  conversed  familiarly  with  him,  and  took 
pleasure  in  propounding  all  sorts  of  difficult  questions. 
The  Nuncio,  however,  was  never  taken  aback,  so  that 
the  king  would  end  by  saying :  '  Really,  Monsignor, 
you  are  as  clever  a  politician  as  you  are  an  excellent 
churchman.' 

"Our  beloved  and  regretted  queen,  Louisa  Maria,  had 
a  great  veneration  for  the  Archbishop  of  Damietta,  and 
never  missed  an  opportunity  to  obtain  his  blessing  for  her- 
self and  her  children.  This  is  a  fact  which  Monsignor  Pecci 


GRA  TEFULL  Y  REMEMBERED  B  Y  THE  BELGIANS.      121 

still  remembers.  Not  long  ago  a  Belgian  priest,  who  went 
to  Perugia  to  pay  the  prelate  his  respects,  heard  him  recall 
these  incidents.  '  Yes,'  said  the  Cardinal-Archbishop,  '  I 
knew  well  the  father  of  your  present  king,  as  well  as  his 
pious  mother.  I  was  often  admitted  to  the  cordial  inti- 
macy of  the  royal  family,  and  I  have  often  had  in  my  arms 
the  little  Leopold,  Duke  of  Brabant.  I  remember,  too, 
that  Queen  Louisa  Maria,  who  was  so  good  a  Christian, 
used  to  ask  me  to  bless  this  her  oldest  child,  ...  in  order 
that  he  might  be  a  good  king.  And  I  have  often  blessed 
him  with  the  hope  that  he  would.' 

"  We  say  it  with  sincere  pleasure,  Monsignor  Pecci  has 
preserved  a  grateful  remembrance  of  our  country.  Every 
time  that  one  of  our  countrymen  approaches  him  he  never 
fails  to  express  the  sentiments  of  affection  he  entertains 
toward  Belgium.  In  Belgium  itself  many  of  our  active 
politicians  who  then  knew  him  describe  the  superior  intel- 
ligence, the  delicate  grace,  the  practical  tact  with  which 
he  conducted  everything  pertaining  to  the  business  of  his 
Nunciature  in  Brussels.  In  our  highest  society  people  still 
recollect  his  noble  affability  of  manner,  his  correctness  of 
judgment,  and  the  elevation  of  his  ideas.  In  the  family 
of  Count  Felix  de  Merode  *  Monsignor  Pecci  was  a  wel- 
come guest,  his  brilliant  conversation  adorning  that  home- 
circle  which  has  remained  celebrated  in  the  history  of  mo- 
dern Belgium."  f 

To  this  testimony  we  add  another,  taken  from  a  well- 
authenticated  source :  "  The  fact  is  that  he  [Monsignor 
Pecci]  conceived  so  great  an  affection  for  that  deeply  re- 
ligious country  that  he  afterwards  made  of  his  archiepis- 
copal  palace  in  Perugia  a  staying-place  for  every  Belgian 
citizen  who  presented  himself  there.  There  also,  during 
vacation-time,  he  was  in  the  habit  of  welcoming  the  pupils 

*  One  of  the  founders  of  Belgian  independence,  the  father  of  the 
Countess  de  Montalembert  and  of  the  late  Monsignor  de  Merode,  Min- 
ister of  Arms  under  Pius  IX. 

f  From  a  biographical  notice  by  Count  Henri  de  Conde  in  Le  Courrier 
de  PEscaut. 


122  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

of  the  Belgian  College  in  Rome;  and  in  this  college  he  usu- 
ally lodged  when  business  brought  him  to  the  capital  of 
Christendom."  * 

Being  the  man  he  was,  trusted  and  respected,  if  not  be- 
loved, by  men  of  all  classes  and  parties,  it  was  natural  that 
his  influence  and  authority  were  often  used  to  prevent  or 
to  extinguish  untimely  discussions.  His  moderation  was 
like  oil  on  the  troubled  waters.  And  they  were  rough 
enough  in  Belgium  in  those  days.  Sometimes  there  was 
trouble  between  the  Catholics  themselves,  and  conflicts  of 
rights  which  it  required  consummate  prudence,  as  well  as 
great  learning,  to  terminate  to  the  satisfaction  of  both  par- 
ties. "  In  1845  a  very  serious  dispute  arose  between  the 
Jesuits  and  the  University  of  Louvain.  It  originated  in  the 
sudden  creation  of  a  special  faculty  of  philosophy  in  the 
College  de  la  Paix  at  Namur,  the  teaching  of  philosophy 
having  till  then  been  reserved  in  Belgium  to  seminaries  for 
clerical  students,  and  for  laymen  to  the  Catholic  Universi- 
ty of  Louvain.  So  the  Belgian  Catholics  thereupon  were 
split  into  two  factions.  For  the  university  stood  all  the 
bishops  and  a  great  portion  of  the  clergy ;  for  the  Jesuits 
sided  powerful  and  influential  persons,  even  in  Rome.  The 
Nuncio  did  all  he  could  to  calm  the  public  mind,  and  suc- 
ceeded in  getting  both  parties  to  refer  their  claims  to  the 
supreme  judgment  of  the  Holy  See.  The  Pope  asked  the 
opinion  of  all  the  Belgian  bishops,  and  adopted  such  a  pru- 
dential course  as  effectually  restored  peace."  f  The  Nun- 
cio was  thus  justified  in  refusing  to  give  his  own  decision 
on  the  point  in  dispute. 

The  law  on  intermediate  education  also  gave  rise  to 
quite  a  breezy  controversy  among  the  Catholics  themselves, 
the  Catholic  press  being  divided  in  opinion,  and  Bishop 
Von  Brommel,  of  Liege,  taking  a  very  decided  stand.  But 
the  Nuncio's  timely  interference  and  wise  words  of  advice 
put  a  stop  to  the  discussion,  besides  securing  to  the  clergy 
an  unexpected  share  in  the  superintendence  of  intermediate 
schools. 

*  Civilth  Cattolica,  March,  1878  ;  notice  by  F.  Ballarini.  f  MS. 


THE  BELGIAN  COLLEGE  IN  ROME. 


123 


So  was  it  when  the  Ronge  scandal — the  forerunner  of 
the  "  Old-Catholic  "  scandal  of  our  own  days — broke  out 
in  Germany,  and  threatened  to  spread  the  flame  of  schism 
through  the  Rhenish  Provinces.  Monsignor  Pecci  at  once 
took  the  most  effective  steps  to  prevent  the  mischief  from 
crossing  the  German  frontier,  although  its  author  was  a 
native  of  the  diocese  of  Liege.  He  went,  without  a  mo- 
ment's delay,  to  confer  with  the  bishops  of  Cologne,  Treves, 
and  Mayence,  and  communicated  with  the  nuncio  at  Mu- 
nich, securing  their  co-operation  in  localizing  and  isolating 
this  heretical  pestilence. 

During  his  stay  in  Belgium  Monsignor  Pecci  seized 
upon  every  opportunity  to  encourage  the  prelates  of  that 
country  in  their  constitutional  efforts  to  obtain  from  the 
state  a  due  recognition  and  support  for  denominational 
education.  He  'was,  as  the  reader  may  have  gathered 
from  this  and  the  preceding  chapters,  more  especially  zeal- 
ous in  promoting  the  superior  education  of  the  priesthood, 
judging  rightly  that,  in  the  march  of  modern  progress,  the 
clergy  should  lead  in  intellectual  excellence  as  in  holiness 
of  life.  And  as  in  Rome,  from  the  earliest  Christian  ages, 
had  been  established  schools  of  sacred  and  profane  learn- 
ing— centres  from  which  the  soundest  science  in  all  that  per- 
tains to  divine  things,  to  the  government  and  discipline  of 
the  Church  and  the  relations  of  all  legislation  with  her 
laws,  is  derived  for  all  peoples — so  Monsignor  Pecci  wished 
that  the  Belgian  bishops  should  send  to  be  formed  tho- 
roughly in  Rome  the  most  promising  clerics  of  their  respec- 
tive dioceses.  This  project  was  first  laid  by  him  before  the 
assembly  of  the  bishops  at  Mechlin  in  August,  1844,  and 
met  with  a  unanimous  and  hearty  approval.  No  time  was 
lost  in  giving  effect  to  their  resolution.  The  Holy  See  was 
but  too  glad  to  second  the  zeal  of  its  Nuncio  and  the  desire 
of  the  Belgian  hierarchy.  An  elevated  and  healthy  loca- 
tion for  the  proposed  college  was  found  quite  near  the 
Quattro  Fontane*  in  a  vacant  monastery  founded  in  the 

*The  Quattro  Fontane,  or  "  Four  Fountains,"  are  placed  at  the  inter- 
section of  two  of  the  great  thoroughfares  in  Rome — that  leading  from  the 


I  24  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII, 

seventeenth  century  by  Barefooted  Carmelites  (the  reform 
of  St.  Teresa),  and  given  by  Pius  VII.  to  the  Nuns  of  the 
Perpetual  Adoration  (called  Sacrament  ine).  These,  hav- 
ing in  their  turn  selected  a  more  desirable  site  near  the 
Quirinal,  left  their  monastery  free  for  other  purposes. 
Gregory  XVI.  immediately  sanctioned  the  purchase  of 
this  property.  And  thus  the  Belgian  College  in  Rome 
subsists  to  this  day  as  a  monument,  and  an  eloquent  one, 
of  the  enlightened  zeal  of  the  Archbishop  of  Damietta 
for  the  best  interests  of  a  country  than  which,  if  we  ex- 
cept  Ireland,  none  more  thoroughly  Catholic  exists,  a  coun- 
try also  which  is,  without  exception,  the  most  thrifty  and 
prosperous  on  the  European  Continent. 

As  the  autumn  of  1845  was  drawing  to  its  close  Gregory 
XVI.  was  persuaded  to  recall  Monsignor  Pecci  from  a  post 
which  he  had  filled  with  such  credit  to  himself  and  the 
Holy  See,  such  benefit  to  religion,  and  such  satisfaction  to 
the  Belgian  court,  clergy,  and  people. 

The  causes  which  moved  the  Pontiff  to  this  step, 
though  extremely  honorable  to  the  Nuncio,  may  be  re- 
gretted by  the  statesman,  the  reader  of  this  biography 
and  its  author,  as  they  were  by  the  most  enlightened  of 
Monsignor  Pecci's  friends  and  contemporaries. 

His  recall  from  Brussels  to  be  made  Bishop  of  Perugia, 
though  intended  by  Gregory  XVI.  as  a  reward  and  a  pro- 
motion, removed  from  the  great  scene  of  active  diplomatic 
service  a  young  man  of  surpassing  ability  to  bury  him  dur- 
ing more  than  thirty-two  years  in  the  obscurity  and  limited 
usefulness  of  a  bishop's  office  in  a  provincial  town.  Was 
this  a  misfortune? 

Porta  Pia  to  the  Quirinal  Palace,  and  that  opened  or  completed  by  Sixtus 
V.  from  St.  Mary  Major  to  the  church  of  Trinita  de'  Monti,  on  the  Pincio, 
and  called  from  him  Via  Sistina.  The  four  fountains  are  situated  in 
niches  placed  in  the  opposing  angles  of  the  four  adjoining  blocks. 
Three  of  these  thus  belong  to  the  three  neighboring  palaces  of  the  Barbe- 
rini,  Albani,  and  Trugli,  the  fourth  to  the  little  church  of  San  Carlino. 
The  practical  old  Franciscan  monk  who  was  the  dreaded  Sixtus  V. 
wished  to  give  the  neighborhood  a  supply  of  wholesome  water  rather 
than  a  great  work  of  art.  Adjoining  San  Carlino  is  the  Belgian  College. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

STUDYING  LONDON,   PARIS,  AND  ROME. 

[1846.] 

EET  us  forget  Perugia  and  its  expectant  people  for  a 
few  moments  longer,  and  follow  Monsignor  Pecci, 
step  by  step,  from  Brussels  to  Rome.  He  had  of  his  own 
free  will,  and  at  the  first  intimation  of  the  reigning  Pontiff's 
delicately  expressed  wish  that  he  should  accept  the  bishop- 
ric offered  him,  at  once  yielded.  It  was  not  in  itself  a 
promotion.  Perugia  was  not  an  archiepiscopal  see,  while 
Monsignor  Pecci  was  an  archbishop,  with  only  titular  rank, 
it  is  true,  but,  bestowed  on  one  who  was  beginning  his 
regular  career  of  nunciatures,  it  was  sure  to  lead  him  ere 
long  to  the  cardinalate. 

It  is  not  going  out  of  our  way  for  remote  or  deep  rea- 
sons for  the  Pope's  wishing  the  Belgian  Nuncio  to  accept 
the  proffered  see  of  Perugia,  to  say  that  Gregory,  aged, 
taught  by  long  experience,  and  near  his  death,  foresaw 
the  fearful  storms  about  to  burst  on  the  Pontifical  States, 
and  knew  that  Perugia  was,  on  its  hill-top,  one  of  the  cen- 
tres of  revolutionary  activity.  Both  he  and  his  sagacious 
Secretary  of  State,  Cardinal  Lambruschini,  felt  that  such  a 
man  as  Monsignor  Pecci  was  needed.  To  Perugia,  then, 
he  consented  to  go. 

In  Belgium,  it  is  not  too  much  to  say,  court,  clergy,  and 
people  were  filled  with  deep  and  sincere  regret  at  the  first 
tidings  of  their  young  Nuncio's  recall.  He  had  proved 
that  he  thoroughly  understood  the  country  and  its  peo- 
ple, the  political  and  social  problems  involved  in  this  first 
stage  of  their  independent  national  existence,  and  that  he 
was  one  who  could  sustain  and  promote  the  best  of  all 
causes  without  arraying  against  it  in  open  warfare  the 
angry  passions  of  its  adversaries. 


I  26  LIFE  OF  LEO  XII I. 

The  king  and  queen,  who  had  seen  much  of  the  Arch- 
bishop of  Damietta  in  the  intimacy  of  their  private  life, 
were  grieved  at  his  approaching  departure  as  at  the  loss  of 
a  dear  friend  whose  counsels  had  been  to  them  light  and 
comfort.  The  ministers  were  even  more  pained  than  the 
sovereigns.  The  clergy  and  the  Catholic  press  of  the  king- 
dom were  loud  in  deploring  the  withdrawal  of  Monsignor 
Pecci  as  a  national  calamity. 

Leopold  I.  seemed  unable  to  testify  sufficiently  his 
esteem  for  a  man  who  had  fulfilled  his  mission  at  the 
court  of  Brussels  with  such  extraordinary  satisfaction  to 
all  classes.  He  decorated  him  in  the  most  solemn  man- 
ner with  the  Grand  Cross  of  the  order  founded  by  himself, 
and  wrote  with  his  own  hand  to  Gregory  XVI. : 

"  I  feel  bound  to  recommend  Archbishop  Pecci  to  the 
kind  protection  of  your  Holiness ;  he  deserves  it  in  every 
respect,  for  I  have  seldom  seen  a  more  uncommon  devotion 
to  duty,  more  upright  intentions  and  straightforward  con- 
duct. His  stay  in  this  country  must  have  enabled  him  to 
do  your  Holiness  good  service.  I  beg  you  to  require  him 
to  give  you  an  exact  account  of  the  impressions  he  takes 
away  with  him  on  Church  matters  in  Belgium.  His  judg- 
ment on  all  such  things  is  very  sound,  and  your  Holiness 
can  trust  him  wholly."* 

The  Nuncio  could  not  have  spent  three  years  in  the  in- 
timacy of  Leopold  I.  without  hearing  much  of  his  niece, 
Queen  Victoria  of  England,  and  of  her  husband,  Prince 
Albert  of  Saxe-Coburg-Gotha.  Baron  Von  Stockmar, 
who  had  had  not  a  little  to  do  with  placing  Leopold 
on  the  throne  of  Belgium,  had  also  been  instrumental  in 
bringing  about  a  marriage  between  the  Queen  of  England 
and  her  cousin.  He  had  great  influence  in  both  courts,  all 
the  greater  that  he  carefully  abstained  from  intruding  him- 
self upon  the  public  of  either  country.  He  had  learned  to 
prize  Monsignor  Pecci,  and  at  the  joint  solicitation  of  the 
king  and  his  confidential  adviser  the  Roman  prelate  con- 
sented to  visit  London. 

*MS. 


ARCHBISHOP  PECCI  IN  ENGLAND.  \  2  7 

Of  course  he  was  warmly  recommended  to  the  queen 
and  her  husband,  and  by  them  was  received  as  became  one 
who  was  the  friend  of  so  dear  a  relative,  and  who  had 
shown  such  extraordinary  qualities  in  the  discharge  of  his 
office  under  the  most  trying  circumstances. 

The  Anglo-Saxon  race,  on  both  hemispheres,  was  too 
important  a  factor  in  the  problem  of  Christian  civilization 
at  its  present  phase  not  to  have,  long  before  the  year  1845, 
fixed  the  attention  of  one  so  well  informed  and  observant 
as  the  Joachim  Pecci  whose  career  we  have  been  following. 
Ireland,  for  centuries  kept  in  the  twofold  degradation  of 
enforced  ignorance  and  hopeless,  helpless  poverty,  had, 
as  soon  as  the  terrible  yoke  was  somewhat  lightened, 
flooded  with  Catholic  exiles  Great  Britain  in  its  length 
and  breadth,  her  vast  colonial  empire,  and  that  mightier 
empire  of  the  United  States.  Everywhere  the  still  in- 
creasing millions  of  the  chronically  starving  Celtic  race  at 
home  confronted  England  with  a  stern  demand  for  politi- 
cal justice,  and  as  a  living  assurance  that,  through  the  Irish 
race,  Catholicism  would,  in  all  future  time,  be  coextensive 
with  the  English-speaking  world. 

These  Irish  exiles  in  England  in  1845-46  were  mainly 
instrumental  in  building  up  and  supporting  the  Catholic 
churches  which  began  to  reappear  all  over  England,  Wales, 
and  Scotland;  and  in  1845  the  religious  world  had  already 
been  startled  by  the  issue  of  the  Oxford  movement  and  the 
Tractarian  controversy.  The  foremost  theologians  and 
scholars  of  which  the  great  Protestant  university  boasted 
had  braved  public  opinion  and  renounced  every  worldly 
prospect  to  join  the  Church  of  Rome. 

How  could  the  Archbishop  of  Damietta  forego  the  op- 
portunity of  seeing  a  country  where  the  hand  of  Providence 
was  so  visibly  sowing  the  seeds  of  a  near  and  mighty  reli- 
gious and  political  change  ?  At  the  head  of  the  clergy  of 
his  church  was  then  a  man  whom  he  had  known  in  Rome — 
a  great  scholar  like  himself ;  a  churchman  such  as  Archbishop 
Pecci  would  have  all  those  of  his  cloth  in  modern  times ; 
foremost  in  all  learning,  secular  and  divine ;  one  looked  up  to 


I  28  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

by  the  men  of  his  nation  ;  one  revered  as  a  great  teacher  by 
the  Christian  world.  It  was  consoling  to  confer  with  such 
a  man  on  the  religious  future  of  England,  on  the  providen- 
tial mission  entrusted  to  the  down-trodden  Irish  race,  from 
which  Dr.  Wiseman  himself  was  descended. 

The  illustrious  visitor  was,  of  course,  received  at  the 
Court  of  St.  James  as  the  friend  of  the  King  of  the  Bel- 
gians could  not  fail  to  be.  A  whole  month  was  thus  spent 
in  England,  and  spent  to  good  purpose,  as  subsequent 
events  proved.  The  knowledge  and  experience  derived 
from  the  spectacle  of  the  social  life  of  a  great  and  free 
nation ;  of  the  varied  activities  of  the  people ;  of  whole 
populations  plunged  in  hopeless  poverty,  in  the  most 
degrading  ignorance  and  vice,  side  by  side  with  the  most 
enormous  wealth,  with  upper  classes  holding  the  land  in 
their  own  grasp  and  distributing  among  their  sons  the  chief 
offices  of  government  as  if  they  were  an  heirloom  ;  of  a 
state  Church  splendidly  endowed,  and  as  alien  to  the  im- 
poverished, ignorant  masses  as  if  it  and  they  belonged  to 
different  spheres — such  contrasts  and  contradictions  forced 
themselves  upon  the  Bishop  of  Perugia.  They  were  to  oc- 
cupy much  of  his  thoughts  during  his  long  years  of  re- 
tirement and  study  in  the  capital  of  Umbria. 

He  was  at  the  time  unaware  of  the  extreme  gravity  of 
the  illness  from  which  the  Sovereign  Pontiff,  his  friend  and 
benefactor,  was  suffering.  On  his  way  homeward  he  spent 
several  weeks  in  Paris,  the  guest  of  Monsignor  Fornari,  and 
honored  by  Louis  Philippe  and  his  family,  to  whom  the 
Queen  of  the  Belgians  had  warmly  recommended  him. 

The  social,  industrial,  and  political  condition  of  France 
at  that  moment  was  one  which  might  well  excite  alarm  in 
the  mind  of  one  less  enlightened  than  Monsignor  Pecci,  and 
less  familiarly  acquainted  with  the  attitude  and  aims  of 
great  political  parties,  with  the  ambitious  designs  of  Eu- 
ropean courts,  and  with  the  terrible  power  and  the  well- 
defined  plans  of  the  secret  organizations  which  were  slowly 
but  surely  making  themselves  masters  of  Europe  itself. 

Even  as  the  ex-Nuncio  conversed  with  the  French  king 


DEA  TH  OF  GREGOR  Y  XVI. 


I29 


and  queen,  absorbed  at  the  time  in  their  projects  of  matri- 
monial alliances,  their  throne  was  like  a  frame  dwelling  in 
the  Brazilian  forests — though  untouched  in  appearance,  all 
eaten  away  secretly  by  white  ants,  and  sure  to  collapse 
with  the  first  breath  of  the  storm. 

Monsignor  Pecci  was  destined  to  see  more  of  these  ter- 
rible workers.  He  arrived  in  Rome  on  May  22,  1846,  when 
Gregory  XVI.,  lying  at  death's  door,  could  not  read  or 
receive  the  autograph  letter  of  King  Leopold.  The  two 
months  spent  in  visiting  London  and  Paris  had  a  most 
serious  influence  in  shaping  the  course  of  the  Archbishop's 
after-life.  Had  he  returned  to  Rome  immediately  on  quit- 
ting Brussels,  the  Pope,  who  so  highly  prized  his  diplo- 
matic services,  might  have  reconsidered  and  cancelled  his 
nomination  to  the  see  of  Perugia,  and,  even  if  raised  to  the 
dignity  of  cardinal,  as  requested  by  the  King  of  the  Bel- 
gians and  half-promised  by  the  Pontiff  in  recalling  him,. 
Joachim  Pecci  could  have  rendered  the  Holy  See  the  most 
important  services  at  a  period  when  far-seeing  statesman- 
ship was  more  needed  in  Rome,  and  in  Rome's  represen- 
tatives abroad,  than  at  any  period  in  modern  history. 

But  it  is  useless  to  speculate  on  what  might  have  been.. 
We  are  now  in  presence  of  a  momentous  change  in  Rome 
itself. 

The  mortal  illness  of  Gregory  XVI.  filled  Monsignor 
Pecci  with  deep  sorrow.  The  firmness  with  which  this 
Pontiff  repressed  the  insurrectionary  movements,  at  various 
points,  of  the  secret  societies ;  the  dignity  with  which  he 
repelled  the  pretensions  of  the  English  ministers  and  other 
foreign  statesmen  to  dictate  to  him  a  line  of  policy  in  ad- 
ministering the  States  of  the  Church ;  and  the  reputation 
so  easily  created  for  him  by  the  Liberal  anti-Catholic  press 
of  being  narrow-minded,  illiberal,  intolerant,  and  a  despot, 
did  not  affect  the  judgment  of  those  who  approached  him, 
who  knew  the  man  and  the  Pope  in  his  daily  life,  and 
who  could  appreciate  the  thorough  conscientiousness  which. 
he  brought  to  the  discharge  of  every  duty  of  his  high, 
ofrlce,  the  deep  love  of  his  country  and  his  people  which. 


1 30  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

formed  so  salient  a  feature  of  his  character.  Gregory  XVI. 
had  the  misfortune  to  be  the  chief  obstacle  in  Italy,  in 
Christendom,  to  the  revolutionary  designs  of  the  Occult 
Force  and  its  allied  organizations,  "  Young  Italy "  and 
"  Young  Europe."  Had  he  been  an  angel  of  goodness  it 
was  their  interest  to  paint  him  with  the  colors  of  the  Pit. 
And  they  strenuously  labored  to  do  so. 

But  Gregory  XVI.,  as  one  who  approached  him  nearly  * 
testifies,  was,  like  his  immediate  predecessor,  Pius  VIII., 
one  of  the  most  accomplished  scholars  in  Europe.  He 
was  not  only  learned,  but  a  generous  patron  of  learning. 
His  was  a  life  of  unwearied  labor,  self-denial,  and  self-sac- 
rifice. Placed  by  the  votes  of  his  peers  of  the  Sacred  Col- 
lege in  the  Chair  of  Peter,  his  private  life  was  governed 
by  the  same  simplicity  and  piety  which  had  distinguished 
him  when  only  a  Camaldolese  recluse.  Once  official  busi- 
ness and  the  cares  of  his  vast  administration  left  him  free 
at  the  end  of  his  long  days  of  toil,  he  was  only  the  monk 
Mauro  Capellari,  seeking  the  poverty  and  solitude  of  his 
«cell,  and  the  presence  of  the  God  who  judges  popes  and 
.emperors,  as  He  does  the  lowliest  priest  and  the  poorest 
peasant,  in  the  scales  of  inexorable  justice. 

To  Cardinal  Lambruschini,  Gregory's  great  Secretary  of 
.State,  and  no  less  than  his  master  the  detestation  of  every 
secret  or  open  conspirator,  Archbishop  Pecci,  on  his  arrival 
in  Rome,  had  no  need  to  render  a  very  long  account  of  the 
.mission  he  had  fulfilled  in  Belgium.  The  secretary  was 
well  acquainted  with  all  that  had  been  done,  and  had  al- 
. ready  expressed  his  appreciation  of  it. 

But  there  was  one  among  the  members  of  the  Sacred 
College  assembled  in  Rome  in  preparation  for  the  con- 
clave to  whom  the  ex-Nuncio  was  led  to  open  his  heart. 
This  was  Cardinal  Mastai-Ferretti,  soon  to  become  Pope 
Pius  IX.  What  the  latter's  opinion  of  the  Archbishop  of 
Perugia's  services  at  Brussels  was,  and  what  he  had  said 
to  him  before  the  conclave,  was  expressed  anew  in  the 
very  first  audience  after  his  election  to  the  Pontificate. 

*  See  Cardinal  Wiseman,  "  Recollections  of  the  Four  Last  Popes." 


POPE  PIUS  IX.  AND  MONSIGNOR  PECCI.  \  3 1 

"  We  know  you  well,"  he  said  ;  "  and  we  wish  to  reaffirm 
the  pleasure  we  expressed  to  you  on  a  former  occasion 
about  what  you  have  accomplished  in  Belgium  for  the 
good  of  the  Church."  * 

It  fell  to  the  lot  of  the  new  Pontiff  to  reply  to  the  auto- 
graph letter  of  King  Leopold  addressed  to  Gregory  XVI. 
"  Monsignor  Pecci,  lately  Nuncio  near  your  majesty,"  wrote 
Pius  IX.,  "has  placed  in  our  hands  the  precious  letter 
which  you  wrote  to  our  venerable  predecessor  on  the  I4th 
of  May.  .  .  .  The  high  testimony  which  your  majesty  has 
pleased  to  render  to  Monsignor  Pecci,  Bishop  of  Perugia, 
is  most  honorable  to  that  prelate,  who  shall  in  due  time 
experience  the  effects  of  your  royal  and  kindly  wishes  as 
if  he  had  continued  to  fulfil  to  the  end  the  course  of  his 
nunciatures."  f 

The  Archbishop  of  Perugia  did  not  prolong  his  stay  in 
Rome  much  beyond  the  time  necessary  for  completing  his 
official  account  to  the  new  Secretary  of  State  and  visiting 
Carpineto  and  the  members  of  his  family.  Before,  how- 
ever, directing  his  steps  toward  Umbria,  he  had  witnessed 
the  exciting  scenes  which  in  Rome  followed  Pius  IX. 's 
celebrated  Act  of  Amnesty.  But  he  knew  all  classes  of  the 
citizens  too  well,  and  was  too  well  acquainted  with  the 
plans  of  the  Revolutionists  in  the  Eternal  City,  through- 
out the  Papal  States  and  all  Italy,  not  to  know  that  the 

*  MS.  :  "  Prima  di  lasciare  Roma,  Monsignore  Pecci  non  aveva  potato 
vedere  il  Pontefice  che  lo  aveva  elettj,  Gregorio  XVI.,  perche  passato  a  miglior 
•vita  in  quei  giorni  :  ma  essendo  sul  punto  di  adunarsi  il  Conclave  voile 
visitare  il  Cardinale  Mnstai-Ferretti,  vescovo  d'Imola  per  fame  la  cono- 
scenza  ;  e  ne  fu  accolto  contralto  della  piu  squisita  e  benevola  cortesia, 
e  seco  lu;  in  confidente  colloquio  favello  dei  felici  success!  della  sua  nun- 
ziatura  ai  Belgio.  Salito  poco  appresso  Pio  IX.  sulla  Cattedra  Apostolica, 
lo  ricevette  a  formale  udienza  con  eguali  sentimenti  di  cordiale  benevo- 
lenza,  ed  ebbe  a  dirgli  :  Monsignore,  ben  ci  conosciamo,  e  su  quello  eke  ella  ha 
fatto  per  la  Chiesa  nel  Belgio  ncn  abbiamoche  a  rinnovarle  i  sensi  di  vera  com- 
piacenza  che  le  esprimemmo  nel  nostro  colloquio" 

We  have  transcribed  this  passage  as  it  is  in  the  original,  the  sentences 
in  italics  being  exactly  left  as  they  were,  to  convey  to  the  intelligent 
reader  the  meaning  intended  by  the  writer. 

\  "  Cenni  Storici,"  i.  5. 


1 32  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

hymns  of  triumph  sung  to  the  new  Pontiff  always  ended 
by  a  prayer  which  sounded  very  much  like  a  menace. 

We  must  ask  the  reader  to  go  back  with  us  now  to  the 
capital  of  Umbria,  and  to  learn  from  the  most  authentic 
sources  the  circumstances  which  led  to  the  appointment  of 
the  Archbishop  of  Damietta,  still  only  in  his  thirty-sixth 
year,  to  the  important  pastoral  charge  he  so  little  ex- 
pected. 

Perugia  lost  its  bishop,  Monsignor  Cittadini,  in  April, 
1845.  It  at  once  occurred  to  the  clergy  and  people  of  the 
diocese  that  they  could  have  no  more  desirable  successor 
to  their  deceased  prelate  than  the  man  who,  during  his 
brief  sojourn  among  them  as  governor,  had  won  such  gold- 
en opinions  from  all  classes,  and  endeared  himself  to  the 
people  by  advancing  their  best  interests  and  by  the  shining 
examples  of  his  private  life. 

"  The  city  magistrates  and  the  most  distinguished 
among  the  nobility,  through  the  intermediary  of  Cardinal 
Mattei,  the  Protector  of  Perugia,  laid  their  wishes  before 
the  Sovereign  Pontiff,  who  received  the  petition  very  favor- 
ably. Gregory  XVI.  was  gratified  to  see  renewed  in  the 
person  of  Monsignor  Pecci  what  befell  St.  Ambrose,  who, 
while  governing  the  province  of  ./Emilia,  was  sent  to  pre- 
side over  the  canonical  election  of  a  bishop  for  Milan,  and 
was  himself  chosen  by  the  people.  Gregory,  therefore,  de- 
clared himself  ready  to  accede  to  the  prayers  of  the  Perugi- 
nese,  provided  they  could  obtain  the  assent  of  the  prelate 
himself,  'who,  created  in  1843  Archbishop  of  Damietta,  was 
then  Apostolic  Nuncio  in  Belgium.'  *  The  latter,  as  well  to 
comply  with  the  kind  intentions  of  the  Pope  as  influenced 
by  the  affectionate  memories  and  relations  which  bound 
him  to  Perugia,  did  not  hesitate  to  change  his  career,  and 
to  accept  this  pastoral  mission  among  a  people  who  had  for 

*  The  MS.,  which  is  here  quoted,  underlines  this  last  sentence,  as  if  it 
was  taken  from  the  text  of  the  Pope's  answer  to  the  petition  of  the  Peru- 
Kinese.  We  shall  see  presently  that  Gregory  XVI.  did  consider  Mon- 
signor Pecci's  prompt  obedience  to  his  desire  as  an  act  which  touched  him 
deeply.  It  was  sacrificing  future  prospects  to  the  le  ist  wish  of  the  Pontiff. 


MGR.  PECCrS  APPOINTMENT  TO  PERUGIA.          133 

him  so  high  a  regard  and  asked  so  earnestly  for  his  return 
to  them.  He  was  preconized  *  as  Bishop  of  Perugia  in  the 
Consistory  of  January  19,  1846,  and  on  July  26  following 
made  his  solemn  entry  into  his  church,  according  to  the 
ritual  prescribed  for  such  occasions,  and  amid  the  general 
rejoicing. 

"  Before  entering  Perugia,  however,  and  taking  posses- 
sion of  his  see,  Bishop  f  Pecci  gave  another  proof  of  his  life- 
long devotion  to  St.  Francis  of  AssisL  He  made  a  pilgrim- 
age to  the  shrine  of  the  Umbrian  saint,  poured  out  his 
heart  in  the  magnificent  church  of  St.  Mary  of  the  Angels, 
within  the  exquisite  little  sanctuary  of  the  Portiuncula,£ 
and  then  tarried  near  the  tomb  of  St.  Francis  himself  in 
Assisi. 

"  Another  incident  also  serves  to  define  the  character  of 
Joachim  Pecci.  He  had  determined  to  make  his  entry  into 
Perugia  on  July  26,  the  day  on  which  the  Church  cele- 
brates the  feast  of  St.  Anne,  the  mother  of  the  Blessed 
Virgin  Mary.  This,  as  we  know,  was  the  name  of  his  own 
mother,  so  tenderly  loved,  so  unceasingly  regretted.  From 
her  he  had  imbibed  the  deep  piety  which  he  ever  cherished 
for  the  parents  of  Her  who  had  given  birth  to  the  Incar- 
nate Word.  It  is  a  sentiment  which  the  Catholic  heart 

*  "  Preconizing"  is  the  technical  term  for  proclaiming  ia  solemn  Con- 
sistory such  episcopal  appointments. 

f  Perugia  was  not  then  an  anhbishop's  see.  But  as  Monsignor  Pecci 
was  titular  Archbishop  of  Damietta  at  the  time  of  his  promotion  to  Pe- 
rugia, according  to  Roman  rule  he  was  designated  as  "  Archbishop- 
Bishop  "  We  shall  simply  style  him  Archbishop  henceforward. 

\  The  Porziuncola  is  so  called  in  the  history  of  the  Franciscan  Order 
because  it  was  at  first  a  ruinous  little  chapel,  in  the  plain  below  Assisi, 
which  the  Benedictines  offered  as  a  free  gift  to  St.  Francis  and  his  two  first 
companions.  The  plot  of  ground  ir  covered,  with  the  crumbling  walls  and 
roof,  was  thus  the  only  portion  of  God's  earth  the  Saint  and  his  associates 
could  call  their  own.  There  they  lived  during  the  beautiful  period  of 
their  earliest  growth.  Later  the  chapel  was  repaired  and  made  a  sanctuary 
by  the  popular  veneration.  Around  that  little  sanctuary,  later  still,  a  mag- 
nificent cliurch  was  reared,  called  St.  Mary  of  the  Angels.  But  within  this 
glorious  temple,  like  the  Ark  of  the  Covenant  in  the  Temple  of  Solomon, 
was  preserved  the  Porziuncola,  decorated  and  beautified  by  all  the  artists 
of  Italy. 


1 34  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

in  every  part  of  the  world  has  ever  instinctively  cher- 
ished.* 

"  There  was  an  immense  concourse  of  people ;  and  it 
was  said  that  not  less  than  sixty  thousand  persons  came  to 
Perugia  from  the  neighboring  districts  and  the  surrounding 
country,  lining  the  streets  which  lead  from  the  Monastery 
of  San  Pietro  to  the  cathedral.  This  happy  event  was  also 
celebrated  by  a  general  illumination,  and  by  literary  acade- 
mies vying  with  each  other  in  honoring  the  man." 

Under  St.  Anne's  protection,  with  the  holiest  filial 
affections  of  earth  and  heaven  purifying  and  elevating  his 
spirit,  Joachim  Pecci  entered  the  city  in  which,  with  his 
whole  heart  and  soul,  he  intended  to  do  the  work  set 
before  him  by  the  Incarnate  God,  the  great  Shepherd  of 
souls. 

The  Perugians  were  impatiently  expecting  him.  He 
was  their  own  choice.  He  loved  them  and  brought  to 
them  the  devotion  of  a  whole  life  still  in  its  early  prime, 
already  crowned  with  glorious  performance  and  filled  with 
the  promise  of  many  fruitful  years.  His  welcome  was  an 
ovation — not  so  much  one  distinguished  by  outward  display 
as  by  the  outpouring  of  unmistakable  popular  joy.  Dis- 
play enough  there  was,  assuredly ;  for  they  thought  they 
could  not  do  enough  for  one  who,  during  his  brief  stay 
among  them,  had  done  so  much  to  better  the  condition 
of  all  classes.  The  streets  were  decorated  on  his  passage, 
as  if  he  were  a  royal  personage  whom  all  delighted  to 
honor.  The  beautiful  cathedral,  which  he  was  to  beautify 

*  In  France  the  national  sanctuary  of  Ste.  Anne  d'Auray,  near  Nantes, 
is  well  known  to  all  travellers.  It  has  been  ever  specially  dear  to  seamen. 
In  Canada,  below  Quebec,  on  the  North  Shore  and  opposite  the  island  of 
Orleans,  is  La  Grande  de  Sainte  Annet  scarcely  less  famous  than  the  church 
in  Brittany,  and  which  is  also  a  national  shrine. 

In  Youghal,  Ireland,  was  once  a  Convent  Church  of  St.  Anne  on  the 
beach  at  the  entrance  of  the  harbor,  and  whose  tower  only  still  remains 
standing.  It  is  the  lighthouse— as  it  ever  was  in  mediaeval  times,  the 
nuns  being  obliged  to  sec  that  the  light  was  always  fed.  It  was  a  sanc- 
tuary most  dear  to  Irish  seamen  in  Catho'ir  times.  Our  New  Ireland  will 
rebuild  it. 


HIS  RECEP  TION  IN  PER  UGIA .  135 

still  more,  was  crowded  to  its  utmost  capacity  as  the  peo- 
ple conducted  him  in  triumph  to  it.  There  were  addresses 
from  the  civil  authorities,  from  the  chapter  and  clergy, 
and  other  bodies,  all  heartfelt  in  the  sentiments  they  ex- 
pressed, and  to  all  of  which  the  Archbishop  replied  in  his 
happiest  vein  ;  for  his  heart,  deeply  stirred  by  all  these 
manifestations,  went  out  to  his  people  and  was  felt  in 
every  sentence  he  uttered.  In  the  evening  the  entire  city 
was  illuminated  ;  and  the  country  folk  from  far  and  near 
who  had  flocked  in  lingered  lovingly  around  the  episcopal 
residence  to  catch  a  glimpse  of  their  young  prelate's  per- 
son, to  get  his  blessing  or  perchance  a  word  of  fatherly 
affection  from  his  lips.  And  they  were  not  disappointed. 

Who  that  has  mingled,  in  the  Italian  cities  of  the 
north  and  centre  at  least,  with  the  masses  of  the  common 
people  in  street,  public  square,  or  church,  on  any  one  of 
those  great  religious  celebrations  which  are  so  dear  to 
them,  but  must  remember  with  emotion  how  gentle,  how 
orderly,  how  well-bred,  and  how  courteous  toward  each 
other  and  to  strangers  this  much  maligned  people  are? 
And  who,  coming  from  any  part  of  the  English-speaking 
world,  and  comparing  the  conduct  of  the  popular  masses 
in  his  own  land,  on  days  of  public  festivity,  with  that  of 
the  Italian  contadini,  but  must  ask,  "  On  which  side  is 
true  civilization,  the  result  of  long  Christian  culture  ?  Is 
it  not  on  that  of  the  sober,  peaceful,  orderly,  civil  crowds 
enjoying  themselves  innocently?" 

We  know  what  deep  political  passions,  artfully  and 
scientifically  nursed,  and  let  loose  and  directed  with  con- 
summate skill,  characterized  the  popular  demonstrations 
in  nearly  all  the  Italian  cities  in  the  summer  of  1846  and 
afterward.  These  passions,  created  and  fostered  for  the 
most  sacred  of  all  earthly  purposes — that  of  securing  na- 
tional liberty  and  self-government — were  a  force  unhappily 
set  in  motion  and  directed  against  the  religion  and  the 
institutions  which  had  been,  in  Italy,  the  parent  and  the 
nurseries  of  Christian  civilization.  The  cause  and  interests 
of  religion,  by  the  long  and  scientific  education  given  by 


1 36  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

the  Revolution  to  the  people  of  the  cities  and  towns  es- 
pecially, had  been  identified  with  what  these  were  taught 
to  regard  as  the  enemy  of  liberty  and  fatherland,  as  the 
irreconcilable  foe  of  all  amelioration  among  the  laboring 
masses. 

It  was  so  often  said,  repeated,  taught,  taught  over  again, 
repeated,  and  said,  by  every  mouth  and  pen  and  organ 
that  could  reach  the  popular  eye,  the  popular  ear,  the  pop- 
ular heart,  that,  more  even  than  the  foreign  princes  who 
owned  so  much  of  the  soil  of  Italy  and  held  her  peoples 
in  bondage,  the  Pope,  the  priesthood,  the  Church  were 
the  foes  to  be  beaten  down,  crushed,  and  got  rid  of  once 
and  for  ever,  that  many  of  the  laboring  masses  in  the 
cities  began  to  believe  it,  and  the  middle  classes,  who 
wanted  to  climb  over  their  betters  into  power,  feigned 
to  believe  it,  acted  as  if  they  did,  and  threw  themselves 
furiously  into  the  rising,  swelling,  rushing  current  of  pop- 
ular hatred,  heading,  guiding  it,  and  lashing  it  into  fury. 

This  the  clubs  of  the  secret  societies  had  long  been 
doing  in  Perugia,  as  well  as  elsewhere.  They  had  hitherto 
done  it  in  secret  and  dark  places.  The  Amnesty  of  Pius 
IX.  now  gave  the  conspirators  an  opportunity  to  come 
to  the  surface  and  the  open  light  of  day.  Thenceforward 
no  earthly  power  could  destroy  them,  though  it  might 
check  them  for  a  brief  space. 

Who  will  create  and  organize  a  religious,  a  Christian, 
a  conservative  opinion  capable  of  counteracting  these  pas- 
sions? Who  will  call  into  being,  by  teaching  and  example, 
the  mighty  moral  forces  able  to  confront  these  powers 
of  evil,  and  save  Christendom  and  society  from  the  chaos 
of  anarchy  toward  which  it  is  hastening? 

It  was,  therefore,  no  undivided,  harmonious,  one  mind- 
ed, one-hearted  community  that  the  new  Archbishop  of 
Perugia  was  called  to  govern  in  spirituals ;  for  in  tem- 
porals the  province  was  always  administered  by  a  prelate- 
delegate  appointed  by  the  Pope. 

The  Archbishop,  from  the  first  day,  understood  exactly 
his  position,  with  its  perils  and  its  duties.  He  had  grasped 


A  FORECAST. 


137 


all  the  elements  of  the  European  problem,  all  the  ten- 
dencies of  the  age,  all  the  probabilities  and  possibilities 
of  the  coming  era,  so  far  as  human  sagacity,  a  careful 
observation  of  facts,  and  study  of  principles  could  enable 
a  man,  brought  early  into  contact  with  the  leaders  of  men 
and  of  human  opinion,  to  understand  the  present  and 
divine  the  future. 

He  lost  no  time  in  doing  his  duty,  in  educating  and 
preparing  his  flock  to  withstand  the  perils  which  beset 
their  consciences,  their  homes,  and  their  country.  We 
shall  find  him  instructing  them  diligently  and  solidly; 
creating  churches  and  schools  wherever  most  needed ;  pro- 
moting piety  and  education  in  every  parish  ;  raising  the 
standard  of  education  in  the  seminaries  destined  for  cle- 
rical students ;  renovating  the  great  schools  of  superior 
education ;  lifting  his  eloquent  voice,  in  pastoral  letters, 
to  protest  against  the  outrages  and  injustice  done  to  re- 
ligion and  its  chief,  and  warning,  by  writings  as  admirable 
for  their  sound  doctrine  and  exquisite  literary  forms  as 
they  are  for  their  opportuneness,  the  people  of  Italy  and 
all  Christendom  against  the  errors  which  unsettle  and  cor- 
rupt men's  minds  in  our  age,  and  against  the  vices  begot- 
ten of  unbelief,  the  unbridled  love  of  pleasure,  and  the 
loss  of  faith  in  the  eternal  world  with  its  rewards  and 
punishments. 

It  were  hard  to  say  which  one  may  praise  most  in  this 
laborious  episcopate  of  thirty-two  years  in  Perugia — the 
works  accomplished  by  the  Archbishop  to  foster  faith,  edu- 
cation, and  piety  among  his  people,  or  the  prophetic  writ- 
ings by  which  he  taught  them  Christian  wisdom,  and  with 
them  taught  also  the  whole  Christian  world.  • 

We  have  now  to  follow  him  in  his  labors. 


PART  THIRD. 


JOACHIM  PECCPS  GLORIOUS  EPISCOPATE  IN  PERUGIA. 
1846-1878. 


CHAPTER  X. 

IN    PERUGIA — PREPARING    FOR    THE    BATTLE. — I.   BY  EDU- 
CATION. 

*  VI  *S  was  to  be  expected,  the  Archbishop  of  Perugia's 
<%Jl  M  t  first  care  was  education.  When,  in  the  middle  of 
the  sixteenth  century,  St.  Charles  Borromeo,  younger  even 
in  years  than  Monsignor  Pecci,  took  possession  of  the  see 
of  Milan,  his  knowledge  of  the  needs  of  his  flock  and  of  the 
needs  of  all  Italy  made  him  devote  himself  to  the  task  of 
organizing  not  only  a  perfect  system  of  secular  instruction, 
complete  in  all  the  departments  of  science  then  known,  but 
a  thorough  system  of  religious  instruction,  beginning  with 
the  teaching  of  the  catechism  in  every  parish  church,  in 
every  elementary  school,  and  ending  in  the  best  endowed 
chairs  of  theology,  canon  law,  philology,  and  hermeneutics. 
He  found  already  existing,  as  is  attested  by  a  monu- 
ment placed  in  the  cathedral  of  Milan,  a  society  of  Chris- 
tian Doctrine,  established  earlier  in  the  century  by  a  zeal- 
ous priest  whose  prophetic  mind  divined  the  coming 
dangers  to  faith  and  morals,  and  who  devoted  himself, 
and  enlisted  others  with  him  in  the  cause,  to  the  labor  of 
thoroughly  grounding  the  children  of  the  people  in  the 
knowledge  of  the  Gospel  truth  and  morality.  This  was 
also  the  primary  object  to  which  St.  Ignatius  Loyola  and 
his  first  associates  gave  themselves  up  after  their  arrival  in 
Italy,  when  the  Holy  See  permitted  them  to  evangelize  the 
populations  of  town  and  country.  They  endeavored  to 
make  revealed  truth  penetrate  into  the  popular  mind  by 
the  most  efficient  methods  ever  devised  by  the  mind  of 
man. 

Not  content  with  preaching — in  language  which  charmed 

14* 


142  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

the  most  educated  by  its  pregnant  simplicity  and  entered 
the  intelligence  of  the  .most  unlearned  as  the  light  penetrates 
a  sound  eye — in  the  cathedrals  and  principal  churches, 
they  afterward  went  about  the  streets  ringing  a  hand-bell 
and  summoning  all  the  children  to  catechism.  The  chil- 
dren flocked  to  the  churches  at  their  call,  and  with  them 
came  their  parents.  There  these  men  broke  to  the  little 
ones  of  Christ's  flock  the  bread  of  the  divine  word  in  such 
a  way  that  not  a  particle  fell  to  the  ground.  Thus  did 
Francis  Xavier  in  Rome  and  elsewhere ;  thus  did  he  in  the 
capital  of  Portugal  on  his  way  to  the  East  Indies ;  thus  did 
he  everywhere,  and  almost  every  day,  during  his  marvellous 
missionary  labors  in  the  East.  Bell  in  hand,  he  would  pass 
through  the  streets  of  the  pagan  cities  and  summon  the 
little  children  to  follow  him  and  listen  to  the  word  of  God. 
And,  as  if  the  bell  were  some  magic  instrument  which  com- 
pelled their  wills  to  follow  the  great  modern  apostle,  they 
trooped  after  him  to  be  enlightened  and  to  be  baptized, 
they  and  their  parents  with  them.  Read  his  method  of 
catechising,  and  see  if  anything  can  be  more  admirable, 
more  effective  in  captivating  the  intelligence  and  the  heart, 
when  wielded  by  a  man  or  a  woman  whose  soul  is  earnest 
in  the  work  of  God. 

This  St.  Charles  Borromeo  saw  carried  out  in  Rome  by 
the  brethren  of  Xavier,  and  this  he  carried  out  himself  in 
the  vast  diocese  of  Milan.  This  his  cousin  and  successor, 
Archbishop  Frederick  Borromeo,  embodied  in  his  wonder- 
ful Confraternities  of  Christian  Doctrine,  which  soon  ex- 
tended to  all  Italy. 

This  is  what  Italy  most  needed  in  1846  and  the  terrible 
years  which  followed.  This  is  what  she  most  needs  to-day, 
January  i,  1887. 

Archbishop  Pecci  was  too  enlightened,  too  sagacious, 
too  practical  not  to  have  perceived,  ere  taking  charge  of 
the  diocese  of  Perugia,  that  such  was  also  the  need  of  the 
Italian  populations — a  need  made  all  the  more  imperative 
by  the  propaganda  of  irreligious,  immoral,  and  revolution- 
ary teachings  and  principles  which  found  means,  through 


THE  TRUE  NEED  OF  ITALY  IN  1846.  143 

the  secret  agencies  of  the  "  clubs,"  to  disseminate  their 
prints  among  all  who  could  read,  to  inoculate  with  their 
venom  the  minds  and  hearts  of  those  who  could  not.  No 
amount  of  vigilance  on  the  part  of  the  authorities  availed 
to  check  the  spread  of  this  pestilential  apostleship  of  irre- 
ligion  and  revolt. 

The  sacred  words  of  country,  nationality,  independence, 
and  Italian  unity  were  the  spell-words  used  by  these  ubi- 
quitous and  sleepless  agents  of  what  was  upheld  as  the 
cause  of  the  people  to  catch  the  ear,  move  the  heart,  and 
enlist  the  sympathy  of  the  popular  masses,  especially  in 
the  cities. 

The  growing  mischief  and  the  mighty  influence  of  all 
these  admirably  organized  agencies  could  only  be  counter- 
acted by  another  apostleship — one  combining  the  earnest- 
ness, the  spirit  of  self-sacrifice,  the  devotion  to  God  and 
God's  people  which  distinguished  the  first  preachers  of  the 
Gospel  in  Imperial  Rome  and  Italy,  with  the  knowledge  of 
the  present  needs  and  dangers  of  the  country,  and  the  sci- 
entific skill  to  meet  and  vanquish  in  intellectual  conflict  all 
the  enemies  of  revelation,  who  were  also  the  enemies  of 
the  faith  professed  by  the  Italian  people. 

Nothing  could  withstand,  baffle,  and  beat  back  the 
wide-spread  and  well-disciplined  forces  of  Unbelief — who, 
unfortunately,  won  their  successes  in  the  name  of  patri- 
otism and  Italy — but  a  clergy  fully  alive  to  the  dangers 
and  responsibilities  of  the  situation,  and  fully  equipped 
with  the  best  weapons  for  the  contest ;  who  had,  mar- 
shalled behind  them,  partaking  of  the  ardor,  the  convic- 
tions, the  knowledge,  and  the  skill  of  their  leaders,  the 
popular  masses  in  city  and  country. 

The  people  of  Italy,  it  was  already  evident  in  1846, 
would  be  lost  to  religion,  and  won  over,  by  force,  by  per- 
suasion, by  seduction,  by  sympathy,  to  the  cause  of  the 
Revolution  holding  aloft  the  banner  of  nationality,  if  the 
clergy  did  not  hasten  to  make  the  people  understand  that 
religion  never  had  stood  and  never  could  stand  in  the  way 
of  Italy's  true  freedom  or  national  interests. 


1 44  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

At  any  rate,  the  people  had  to  be  thoroughly  grounded 
in  religious  knowledge  and  in  the  faithful  practice  of  Chris- 
tian morality,  if  they  were  to  be  saved  from  all  the  mani- 
fold influences  of  evil  to  which  they  were  exposed  even 
then,  and  which  succeeding  political  events  were  so  to  in- 
tensify and  complicate  as  to  baffle  the  previsions  of  all 
human  forethought. 

Monsignor  Pecci's  first  care  in  Perugia  was  to  make 
every  possible  provision  for  the  education  of  his  clergy 
in  the  first  place,  then  for  that  of  the  upper  classes  ;  know- 
ing, as  he  did,  that  education,  like  all  mighty  influences  for 
good  or  evil,  spreads  from  above  downward,  from  the  lead- 
ing classes  to  the  masses  of  the  people.  Indeed,  from  his 
first  taking  possession  of  his  episcopal  see  his  keen,  prac- 
tised eye  took  in  the  condition  of  education  among  all 
ranks  of  his  people.  And  if  we  mention  before  all  else  his 
labors  in  behalf  of  his  ecclesiastical  and  university  schools, 
it  is  to  deal  with  the  subject  in  logical  order  much  more 
than  in  the  order  of  time. 

We  here  quote  from  our  manuscript : 

"  No  praise  can  do  justice  to  the  earnest  zeal  which  he 
displayed  for  the  diffusion  of  Christian  knowledge  and  for 
spreading  religious  instruction  among  the  people.  He  pro- 
moted this  great  object  by  the  work  of  missions,  by  spiri- 
tual exercises,  by  the  teaching  of  catechism,  by  the  solemn 
festivities  of  First  Communion  celebrations,  by  the  estab- 
lishment of  Christian  Doctrine  Societies. 

"  The  text  of  the  Diocesan  Catechism,  which  he  re- 
cast and  reproduced  in  a  number  of  editions ;  the  episco- 
pal decrees  and  ordinances  which  he  published  for  regu- 
lating in  all  the  parishes  of  his  charge  the  explanation  of 
the  Gospel  and  of  the  letter  of  the  Catechism  ;  and  the 
collection  of  learned  and  practical  pastoral  letters  which 
he  annually  addressed  to  his  diocesans,  especially  for  the 
Lenten  season,  all  bear  witness  to  the  wonderful  zeal  which 
he  felt  for  the  spiritual  welfare  of  his  people,  and  to  the  in- 
tense desire  he  had  to  maintain  in  its  integrity  and  purity 
their  baptismal  faith." 


THE  DIOCESAN  SEMIXARY. 


M5 


After  the  Piedmontese  occupation  of  Umbria  and  "  the 
dispersion  of  the  Monastic  Orders,  he  saw  that  there  would 
be  among  the  people  a  dearth  of  spiritual  food  on  account 
of  the  loss*  of  so  many  preachers.  Wherefore,  in  1875, 
he  founded  a  Union  of  Preachers  of  the  Word  of  God, 
whose  object  was  to  extend  the  benefits  of  religious 
instruction  to  the  various  classes  and  quarters  of  the 
city  and  diocese,  together  with  missions,  spiritual  retreats, 
catechistical  lessons,  First  Communions ;  for  all  which  sa- 
cred ministrations  he  had  in  1873  established  admirable 
rules,  in  order  to  surround  them  with  greater  solemnity, 
to  make  them  more  fruitful  and  more  edifying  in  the  city 
parishes. 

"  Moreover,  he  decreed,  after  consulting  with  the  parish 
priests  and  rectors,  a  fixed  regulation  for  divine  services 
throughout  the  city.  There  were  to  be  stated  hours  for 
these  and  for  sermons  on  feast-days,  so  that  the  people  of 
•every  quarter  could  at  every  hour  have  the  utmost  facility 
for  attending  to  their  duties  and  profiting  by  the  instruc 
tions  given.  In  this  same  year  of  1872,  as  well  as  by  an- 
other rule  promulgated  in  1875,  he  strongly  urged  all  par- 
ish priests  and  their  assistants  not  to  desist  from  teaching 
the  Christian  Doctrine  to  children,  and  to  have  Catechism 
classes  in  the  afternoon  for  adults." 

The  Diocesan  Seminary,  as  being  the  nursery  of  the 
local  priesthood,  naturally  obtained  an  unusual  amount  of 
care.  "  He  was  wont  to  call  it  the  apple  of  his  eye."  *  It 
had  been  founded  in  1571  by  Cardinal  Fulvio  della  Corgna, 
Bishop  of  Perugia,  and  had  also  been  an  object  of  special 
solicitude  to  Bishop  Napoleone  Comitali,  one  of  Monsignor 
Pecci's  immediate  predecessors.  The  Seminary  was  close 
by  the  episcopal  palace,  and  the  new  prelate  conceived  at 
once  the  design  of  enlarging  the  edifice  by  uniting  it  with 
the  episcopal  residence  and  giving  up  to  the  Seminary  the 
wing  which  adjoined  it.  It  was  a  generous  conception. 
But  Monsignor  Pecci  went  further,  for  between  1846  and 
1850  he  spent  six  thousand  Roman  crowns  of  his  own 

*MS. 


DOOR  OF  THE  MUNICIPAL  HALL, 

CATHEDRAL  SQUARE    PERUGIA. 
M6 


HIS  LOVE  OF  ORDER,  DISCIPLINE,  AND  CULTURE.    147 

money — and  he  was  not  rich — in  making  all  these  changes 
and  improvements. 

"  At  the  same  time,"  the  manuscript  goes  on  to  say,  "  his 
principal  attention  was  bestowed  on  raising  the  standard 
of  education  in  the  establishment  by  creating  new  professor- 
ships and  appointing  to  them  the  best  men  he  could  find. 
Nothing  was  spared  by  him  that  could  help  to  make  the 
zeal  for  study  flourish  in  the  schools,  so  that  the  Seminary 
of  Perugia  should  enjoy  the  greatest  possible  fame  in  Um- 
bria  and  the  neighboring  provinces."  *  The  mind  of  the 
Archbishop-Bishop  of  Perugia  had  been  from  his  early 
years  too  thoroughly  disciplined,  and  his  whole  life,  even 
at  that  time,  was  too  well  ordered,  that  he  should  not 
value  discipline  and  perfect  order  in  his  great  schools, 
and  insist  upon  their  observance  by  both  professors  and 
pupils. 

His  object  in  incorporating  the  Seminary  buildings  with 
his  own  residence  was  to  have  the  institution  and  the  great 
work  it  was  doing  under  his  own  eye  day  and  night.  The 
pride  of  the  gardener  is  to  see  every  plant  in  his  nursery 
thrive  and  grow,  every  flowering  shrub  covered  with  the 
loveliest  blossoms  of  spring,  every  fruit-tree  bearing  the 
ripening  promise  of  golden  autumn.  And  the  gardener's 
joy  is  to  see  tree  and  shrub  and  flower  responding  to  his 
careful  and  loving  husbandry. 

It  seemed  to  be  Archbishop  Pecci's  dearest  delight  to 
be  among  these  young  plants  of  the  sanctuary,  or  to  watch 
the  habits  and  growth  of  each,  as  if  it  were  indeed  the 
apple  of  his  eye.  If  he  had  it  at  heart  that  the  pupils, 
all  through  their  classic,  scientific,  and  theological  courses, 
should  derive  as  much  benefit  as  possible  from  the  lessons 
of  their  accomplished  masters,  he  was  equally  anxious  that 
these  should  omit  no  pains  to  make  their  teaching  perfect. 
They  were  to  be  well  prepared  and  punctual  in  their  at- 
tendance. The  Archbishop,  although  trusting  to  the  su- 
periors and  directors  in  the  discharge  of  their  respective 
duties,  and  exacting  a  full  and  minute  account  of  the  pro- 

*MS. 


148  I-IFE  OF  LEO  XI II. 

gress  made  in  each  department,  would  not  throw  upon  any 
one  the  duty  of  securing,  both  in  professors  and  scholars. 
a  careful  fulfilment  of  their  allotted  tasks.  He  could  be 
expected  in  the  schools  at  any  moment,  never  giving  notice 
of  his  coming,  but  entering  quietly  in  the  midst  of  a  lec- 
ture or  recitation,  seating  himself  without  exciting  observa- 
tion, and  listening  attentively  to  the  proceedings  of  the 
class. 

Both  master  and  pupils  were  sure  to  profit  by  these  un- 
expected visits.  He  knew  how  to  convey  to  both,  with 
equal  tact  and  delicacy,  whatever  defects  he  had  noticed,  as 
well  as  to  praise  and  encourage  what  was  meritorious.  It 
is  a  rare  gift  in  a  superior,  that  of  bestowing  aright  the 
due  meed  of  blame  or  praise. 

One  anecdote  in  this  relation  paints  Monsignor  Feed's 
character  and  habits  to  the  life.  It  is  told  by  Professor 
Geromia  Brunelli  : 

"  Neither  my  scholars  nor  myself,"  he  says,  "  are  likely 
ever  to  forget  a  remarkable  incident  connected  with  Car- 
dinal Pecci.  ...  I  do  not  know  how  it  happened,  but  one 
day  I  failed  to  be  in  my  place  at  the  appointed  hour  in 
my  school  of  Belles-Lettres.  Hastening  to  repair  the  delay, 
with  the  trepidation  of  a  man  who  knew  that  the  most 
likely  thing  in  the  world  was  to  meet  the  Cardinal  in  the 
corridor  of  the  college,  watchful  over  the  silence  and  order 
to  be  kept  there,  what  was  my  astonishment,  when  enter- 
ing the  school  without  any  previous  knowledge  of  the  fact, 
to  see  the  Cardinal  seated  in  my  chair  and  translating  for 
the  benefit  of  my  rapt  scholars  a  passage  from  Cicero's 
*  Pro  Milone,'  making  them  feel  and  admire,  in  his  own  ele- 
gant language  and  with  his  fine  taste,  the  hidden  beauties 
of  the  Roman  orator's  composition  and  diction  ! 

"  Confused  at  first,  but  taking  courage  presently,  I  sat 
down  on  the  benches  among  the  pupils,  and  begged  the 
Cardinal  to  condescend  to  continue  his  lesson.  But  he  left 
the  chair,  inviting  me  graciously  to  occupy  it,  and  impress- 
ing on  his  young  hearers  the  importance  of  gathering  all 
the  fruit  they  could  from  their  studies.  Perhaps  in  the 


STRONG  AND  CAREFUL  CUL  T17RE.  \  49 

smile  which  lit  up  his  countenance  he  conveyed  to  the  pro- 
fessor a  silent  but  pleasant  reproof."  * 

Of  course  such  a  man  would  insist  upon  testing  solidly 
the  quality  of  the  teaching  in  college  and  theological  semi- 
nary, as  well  as  the  application  of  the  students,  by  severe 
quarterly  examinations.  He  never  failed  to  be  present  at 
these,  and  to  be  himself  one  of  the  examiners.  At  the  end 
of  each  scholar-year  he  made  it  a  rule  to  have  Academies, 
to  which  the  most  cultivated  citizens  were  invited,  and  in 
which  the  students  had  to  read  or  declaim  compositions  of 
their  own  as  specimens  of  the  culture  they  had  received 
during  the  year. 

All  this  was  after  the  model  of  the  strong  and  careful 
culture  which  he  had  himself  received  at  the  hands  of  the 
Jesuits.  From  their  method,  too,  he  borrowed  the  admi- 
rable practice  of  having  the  students  in  Philosophy  and 
Divinity  sustain  yearly,  and  particularly  at  the  end  of  each 
of  the  philosophical  and  theological  curriculums,  a  great 
public  act  embracing  all  the  matters  taught.  Such  a  dis- 
tinction is  one  that  must  ever  be  highly  prized  and  much 
sought  for;  the  prospect  of  it  is  a  great  stimulus  to  the 
noblest  intellectual  ambition. 

Archbishop  Pecci  gave  the  utmost  solemnity  and  eclat 
to  these  scholastic  celebrations  and  assemblages.  The 
neighboring  bishops,  Roman  prelates  famed  for  their  learn- 
ing, the  foremost  theologians  and  scientists  in  Umbria,  all 
that  was  distinguished  for  rank  or  culture,  were  invited, 
and  deemed  it  an  honor  to  encourage  by  their  presence 
these  feasts  of  the  intellect. 

It  was  while  he  was  thus  perfecting  everything  connect- 
ed with  lay  and  clerical  education  in  his  diocese  and  through- 
out Umbria  that  he  began  to  call  public  attention  to  the 
scientific  method  of  that  greatest  of  Italian  scholars,  St. 
Thomas  Aquinas,  who  is  in  truth  the  greatest  luminary  of 
the  Catholic  Church. 

His  careful  philosophical  and  theological  training  in  the 

*  Prolusione  letta  dal  Brunelli  per  1'anno  scolastico  1878-79,  e  pub- 
blicatanella  "  Leonis  XIII.  Pont.  Max.  Carolina,"  Udine,  1883. 


I  50  LIFE  OF  LEO  XI IL 

Collegio  Romano,  where,  as  the  Jesuits  are  enjoined  by 
their  founder,  the  works  and  method  of  St.  Thomas  are 
made  the  basis  of  the  entire  curriculum  of  Philosophy  and 
Divinity,  had  filled  Monsignor  Pecci  with  a  great  admira- 
tion for  him  who  is  known  in  the  Church  as  the  "  Angelic 
Doctor." 

In  truth,  it  is  impossible  to  find  any  intellectual  method 
better  fitted,  in  imparting  or  acquiring  a  scientific  know- 
ledge of  the  entire  system  of  Revealed  Truth,  to  place 
before  the  mind,  side  by  side,  both  the  errors  which  are 
opposed  to  the  various  doctrines  of  Revelation  and  these 
doctrines  themselves  stated 'in  all  their  native  simplicity 
and  supported  by  every  argument  which  can  help  to  eluci- 
date and  convince.  In  St.  Thomas's  great  "  Summa  Theo- 
logize," and  in  his  wonderful  philosophical  "  Summa  contra 
Gentiles,"  every  objection  ever  devised  against  Revelation 
as  a  whole,  its  separate  parts,  or  the  solid  array  of  evidence 
which  natural  reason  brings  to  its  support,  is  stated  clearly, 
fairly.  Before  each  proposition  embodying  a  particular 
theological  truth,  as  before  some  outwork  about  to  be  car- 
ried by  storm,  these  objections,  gathered  from  pagan  and 
Christian  times,  are  arrayed  in  regular  order.  Each  one  is 
heard,  discussed,  disposed  of  before  the  particular  doctrine 
itself  is  formulated,  analyzed,  and  demonstrated. 

In  the  schools  this  method  imposes  on  the  professor  a 
large  and  liberal  view  of  the  dogma  under  discussion  ;  it 
supposes  that  he  has  gone  round  and  round  the  truth,  and 
surveyed  it  in  all  its  bearings,  and  that  he  can  guide  his 
hearers  in  a  like  survey  of  the  majestic  edifice  as  a  whole 
and  in  its  minutest  details.  It  imposes  on  the  student — 
who  has  to  attack  and  defend,  by  turns,  the  propositions 
of  Christian  theology  or  philosophy,  as  the  case  may  be — 
a  like  thorough  study  of  both  sides  in  every  question.  This 
method  of  investigation  and  discussion  in  use  in  the  great 
Catholic  university  schools  is  necessarily  productive  of 
large-mindedness,  for  it  compels  the  deepest  and  widest 
study  of  all  departments  of  human  knowledge.  And  it 
begets,  at  the  same  time,  that  liberal  and  tolerant  temper 


THE  ' '  A CADEM Y  OF  ST.    THOMA S  AQ UINA S."         I  5  I 

arising  from  a  scientific  knowledge  of  Revealed  Truth,  from 
an  enlightened  and  firm  conviction  of  its  divine  origin 
and  of  its  unspeakable  benefits  to  mankind,  but  arising  as 
well  from  a  clear  perception  of  the  limits,  on  every  subject, 
of  the  truth  demonstrated,  and  a  calm  tolerance  of  the 
doubts  and  objections  created  by  seeming  contradictions 
and  by  the  vast  region  of  speculation  and  probability  lying 
outside  what  is  certain  or  defined  as  of  faith. 

These  were  the  large  and  sure  methods  which  Mon- 
signor  Pecci  labored,  and  not  without  success,  to  intro- 
duce, familiarize,  and"  develop  in  the  great  clerical  schools. 
To  encourage  all  who  had  at  heart  the  progress  of  a  Chris- 
tian philosophy  based  on  these  methods,  he  drew  up  in 
1858  a  constitution  and  rules  for  an  Academy  of  St. 
Thomas  Aquinas  which  was  to  extend  its  benefits  to  the 
whole  of  Umbria.  The  events  which  convulsed  all  Italy 
in  1859,  and  the  Piedmontese  invasion  of  1860,  prevented 
Cardinal  Pecci  from  carrying  out  his  design.  This  could 
only  be  done  in  1872,  when  the  Academy  was  instituted 
and  limited  in  its  membership  to  the  sole  diocese  of  Pe- 
rugia. The  constitution  and  rules  were  modified  to  meet 
the  altered  circumstances  of  the  times  and  country.  It 
was  described  by  the  founder  as  "  a  union  of  priests,  hav- 
ing for  its  purpose  the  study  of  the  works  of  the  Angelic 
Doctor."  The  precedent  was  a  noble  one,  and  was  prompt- 
ly imitated  in  Spain  and  Italy.  It  was  also  copied  in  other 
countries  of  Christendom  when  Cardinal  Pecci,  become 
Leo  XIII.,  made  the  philosophical  method  of  St.  Thomas 
the  guide  of  all  Catholic  teachers. 

The  Sixth  Centenary  of  St.  Thomas,  occurring,  as  it  did, 
in  1874,  gave  a  fresh  impulse  to  the  Perugian  Academy, 
Avhich  that  year  issued  the  first  volume  of  its  "  Scientific 
Transactions."  This  publication  and  those  which  have 
since  followed  gave  consoling  evidence  of  the  high  culture 
which  the  great  prelate's  efforts  and  example  had  intro- 
duced among  his  clergy.* 

*  These  "Transactions"  were  published  by  Santucci,  of  Perugia.  We 
can  form  some  estimate  of  the  scientific  and  practical  value  of  the  labors 


I  5  2  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

Thus  labored  he  to  raise  high  the  level  of  the  truest 
science  in  the  souls  of  those  who  were  soon  to  become  the 
teachers  of  his  flock,  the  bright  lights  of  the  Church  of 
Perugia.  But  he  was  far  more  anxious  and  labored  far 
more  strenuously  to  raise  higher  still  in  these  same  chosen 
souls  the  level  of  sanctity.  For  they  were  to  be  guides  of 
the  people  in  all  goodness  and  purity ;  and  their  lives 
were  to  mirror  forth  to  Italians  in  the  dark  and  troublous, 
times  which  were  swiftly  coming  on  the  land  the  virtues 
without  which  Christianity  could  not  live  in  the  country 
where  Peter  and  Paul  had  labored  and  died,  the  country  of 
St.  Gregory  and  St.  Leo,  of  Francis  of  Assisi  and  Thomas 
Aquinas,  of  Dante  and  Tasso,  and  of  Christopher  Columbus. 

To  return  to  the  subject  of  education,  his  solicitude  for 
the  observance  of  strict  discipline  in  all  his  schools  was  only 
a  part  of  his  endeavor  to  promote  and  secure  the  highest 
degree  of  excellence.  He  was  very  particular  in  support- 
ing the  authority  of  both  directors  and  professors,  know- 
ing, as  he  did  by  experience,  that  without  authority  there 
can  be  no  discipline,  and  without  discipline  no  education. 

But  in  his  seminaries  a  severe  discipline,  to  be  what  it 
ought  to  be — a  willing,  loving,  conscientious  compliance 
with  rules — must  proceed  from  higher  motives  than  mere 
outward  respect  for  superiors  or  a  decent  submission  to 
a  necessary  order  of  things.  The  discipline  of  a  seminary, 
a  training-school  for  the  priesthood,  must  be  founded  on 
the  spirit  of  self-denial  practised  in  the  preparatory  stage 
by  men  whose  lives,  to  be  worthy  of  their  calling,  must  be 
one  long  self-sacrifice. 

of  the  academicians  by  naming  the  foremost -of  the  matters  treated.  There 
is  an  "  Essay  on  Anthropological  Investigations  in  accordance  with  the  Prin- 
ciples of  St.  Thomas."  This  is  dedicated  to  the  Angelic  Doctor  on  the  re- 
currence of  his  Sixth  Centenary,  1874  (vol.  i.)  In  this  first  volume  are  the 
constitution  and  rules  of  the  Academy  itself.  In  1878  the  second  volume 
was  published.  This  contains  "  Discussions  of  the  Academy  of  St.  Thomas 
Aquinas  of  Perugia." 

Cardinal  Pecci's  purpose  was  to  demonstrate  that  all  the  discoveries 
and  investigations  of  the  ripest  and  most  careful  modern  science  could 
and  should  be  examined  and  judged  in  the  light  of  the  sound  Christian 
philosophy  of  Thomas  Aquinas. 


SPIRITUAL  CULTURE. 

It  was  one  of  the  most  admirable  features  in  the  life  of 
the  Cardinal  Archbishop  of  Perugia  that  he  made  it  both 
a  pleasure  and  a  duty  to  mingle  with  his  seminarians  in 
their  daily  and  weekly  devotions,  especially  in  the  solemn 
exercises  of  their  annual  spiritual  retreat,*  which  have 
such  wonderful  efficacy  in  purifying  men's  souls,  in  lifting 
them  to  God  and  setting  them  well  forward  on  the  road 
to  all  self-denial. 

"  He  knew  well  what  a  delicate  and  difficult  thing  it  is 
to  give  the  souls  of  the  young  a  right  direction — of  the 
young  especially  who  aspire  to  the  service  of  the  sanc- 
tuary. To  make  sure  of  this  he  took  every  pains  to  have 
them  from  their  earliest  years  solidly  grounded  in  piety,  in 
that  humility  which  accepts  the  rules  of  discipline  willingly, 
and  in  that  practice  of  recollectedness  which  springs  from 
both.  He  was  extremely  jealous  of  having  the  discipli- 
nary rules  in  both  college  school  and  theological  seminary 
strictly  observed.  This  it  was  that  often  brought  him  into 
the  corridors,  into  the  recreation-halls,  and  into  the  chapel. 

"  He  placed  at  the  head  of  the  Seminary  well-known 
and  prudent  men,  men  of  approved  virtue,  from  whom  he 
wished  to  receive  daily  reports.  He  frequently  admitted 
the  seminarians  to  his  presence,  and  always  showed  them 
great  affection  in  order  to  win  their  confidence  and  give 
them  good  counsel. 

"  On  the  other  hand,  he  knew  how  to  temper  this  kind- 
ness with  a  just  severity  toward  such  as  showed  them- 
selves indocile  and  fractious.  But  he  was  careful  not  to  use 
toward  them  anything  like  harsh  words  or  bitter  reproofs, 

*  A  "Spiritual  Retreat  "  is  a  recess  of  eight  or  ten  days,  given,  gene- 
ally  under  the  direction  of  a  priest  of  superior  virtue  and  learning,  to  the 
meditation  of  the  Eternal  Truths — the  Destiny  of  Man,  Heaven,  Hell,  Sin, 
Judgment — the  meditation  of  the  Mysteries  of  Christ's  Life,  and  all  the 
duties  of  the  Christian  man,  the  priest,  and  the  apostle.  The  little  book  of 
'  Spiritual  Exercises  "  composed  by  St.  Ignatius  Loyola  was  the  text  used 
by  his  companions  in  the  sixteenth  century  to  work  the  wonderful  change 
they  effected  in  Europe  as  well  as  in  the  East  Indies  and  America.  Since 
their  time  the  custom  of  these  yearly  Spiritual  Retreats  or  Revivals  has  be- 
come general  in  all  Catholic  lands. 


154  LIFE  OF  LEO 

which  only  irritate  the  ill-disposed  and  drive  them  to  ex- 
tremities. He  reserved  to  himself  the  treatment  of  the 
most  stubborn  cases.  .  .  . 

"It  was  his  habit  twice  or  thrice  a  week  to  go  to  a 
room  specially  reserved  for  him,  during  the  study-hours, 
and  to  send  for  such  of  the  young  men  as  the  rector  con- 
sidered to  be  disobedient  or  disedifying.  There,  all  alone 
with  each  culprit,  the  Cardinal,  with  words  which  united 
real  affection  with  fatherly  severity,  told  him  that  he  felt 
himself  obliged  to  tell  him  that  he  must  correct  himself. 
To  render  this  admonition  more  effective  he  usually  gave 
to  each  of  these  thus  sent  for  a  sheet  written  by  himself 
and  containing,  side  by  side,  the  faults  and  defects  which 
it  was  indispensable  to  get  rid  of,  as  well  as  the  most 
efficacious  means  of  overcoming  them.  He  insisted  that 
this  sheet  should  remain  on  the  student's  table,  so  as  to 
be  continually  under  his  eyes  as  a  reminder. 

44  This  method  produced  the  most  excellent  results ;  the 
most  headlong,  undisciplined,  and  passionate  were  known 
to  change  totally  for  the  better.  The  Cardinal  recom- 
mended above  all  things  the  spirit  of  obedience,  of  docil- 
ity, and  the  resolute  will  to  subdue  self-love  and  pride,  the 
twin-sources  of  moral  disorder. 

41  Then,  to  plant  these  practical  virtues  still  deeper  in 
the  souls  of  his  seminarians,  he  wrote  and  published  a  little 
book  on  '  Humility,'  which  he  dedicated  to  them,  and  in 
which  he  sets  forth  the  means  of  acquiring  this  most  nec- 
essary of  all  virtues  in  the  priest,  the  one  which  should  be 
his  distinctive  characteristic." 

Was  all  this  careful  husbandry,  with  its  unceasing  labor 
of  love  during  thirty-two  years,  rewarded  by  abundant  and 
worthy  fruit  ?  Yes.  Cardinal  Pecci  "  had  the  sweet  con- 
solation of  forming  in  his  Seminary  not  a  few  churchmen 
worthy  of  such  culture,  and  who  at  this  day  fill  high  posi- 
tions and  offices  of  great  trust,  whether  as  pastors  of  souls 
or  as  professors,  and  who  are  justly  regarded  as  the  honor 

*  MS.  This  work  was  published  in  Perugia  in  1871,  and  republished 
in  Lucca  in  iS32. 


THE  ARCHBISHOP'S  HUSBANDR  Y  RE  WARDED.   I  5  5 

of  the  Church  of  Perugia.  Among  many  which  might  here 
be  mentioned  it  will  be  sufficient  to  name  Monsignor  Ro- 
telli,  formerly  Bishop  of  Montefiascone  and  now  Delegate 
Apostolic  in  Constantinople,  and  Monsignor  Boccali,  the 
Pope's  special  auditor  or  judge ;  besides  the  two  brothers 
the  Professors  Satolli,  Professor  Monsignor  Ballerini,  Pro- 
fessor Brunelli,  the  Archpriest  Boschi,  the  Archdeacon  Sal- 
vatorelli,  and  the  two  Canons  Carnicchi. 

"  We  could  say  much  about  the  watchful  solicitude 
with  which  he  ever  attended  to  the  interests  of  the  Semi- 
nary, and  of  the  great  expense  he  incurred  in  improving  it 
materially  and  in  financial  management,  especially  after 
the  losses  and  the  disasters  occasioned  by  the  converting 
of  the  patrimonial  property  of  the  establishment  into  gov- 
ernment funds.  At  first  he  alone  had  to  support  the 
schools  and  pay  the  board  of  poor  scholars,  to  keep  the 
house  in  provisions  in  seasons  of  distress,  to  meet  all  the 
expenses  of  repairs  and  improvements,  to  provide  all  kinds 
of  school  furniture ;  so  that  it  can  truly  be  said  that  his 
forethought  and  generosity  alone  saved  the  establishment, 
after  the  conversion  just  mentioned,  from  the  greatest  dis- 
asters, not  to  say  certain  ruin. 

"  In  fine,  people  were  forced  to  admire  the  practical 
good  sense  and  judgment  displayed  by  him  in  1872  when 
the  government  issued  their  Programmes  of  Studies.  He 
had  the  tact  to  draw  up  a  plan  and  rules  of  direction 
for  the  Seminary,  embracing  all  the  new  subject-matters 
to  be  taught  and  the  discipline  enjoined,  in  such  a  manner 
as  not  to  imperil  the  solidity  and  seriousness  of  the  old 
curriculum,  which  had  given  so  many  distinguished  men 
to  the  Church  and  to  lay  professions.  At  the  same  time 
he  was  careful  that  his  seminarians  should  get  full  instruc- 
tion on  all  the  subjects  required  by  government  examiners 
of  candidates  for  academical  degrees."  * 

*  MS.  With  the  approbation  of  the  Cardinal  Bishop,  they  printed  in 
1872  the  "  Normal  Programme  of  Studies  in  the  Episcopal  Seminary  of 
Perugia."  This  was  signed  by  the  prefect  of  studies,  Canon  Luigi  Ro- 
lelli,  D.D.  ;  it  was  that  drawn  up  by  the  Cardinal. 


CHAPTER  XI. 

PREPARING   FOR   THE   BATTLE — II.  TRAINING   HIS   CLERGY: 
LEADING  THEM   IN  THE   PATHS  OF  SANCTITY. 

'AREFUL  as  Archbishop  Pecci  was  of  the  training 
of  his  seminarians — the  candidates  for  the  priest- 
hood— he  was,  if  possible,  more  so  for  the  advancement  of 
his  priests  in  all  knowledge  and  holiness.  This  was  the 
double  armor  which  alone  could  protect  them  and  render 
them  invincible  in  the  long  and  relentless  warfare  begun 
against  the  Church,  religion,  and  society.  While,  there 
fore,  following  with  unwearied  watchfulness  the  progress 
in  clerical  life  and  learning  of  every  one  of  his  semina- 
rians, both  in  the  college  school  and  in  the  philosophical 
and  theological  department,  he  omitted  no  pains  to  ascer- 
tain how  it  stood  with  every  one  of  his  priests  both  as  to 
intellectual  acquirements  and  as  to  moral  conduct  and  edi- 
fication of  life. 

We  must  not  weary  the  reader  by  repeating  it,  but  it 
is  none  the  less  true  that  Monsignor  Pecci  felt,  on  taking 
charge  of  his  diocese,  like  a  general  sent  to  defend  a  central 
position  in  a  country  threatened  with  invasion,  with  a  for- 
midable hostile  force  massed  on  the  frontiers,  and  secret 
allies  within  the  land  ready  to  co-operate  with  the  foe.  It 
behooved  him,  therefore,  to  look  well  to  his  own  means  of 
resistance,  to  inspect  the  forces  at  his  command,  and  to- 
examine  their  state  of  efficiency. 

It  may  be  said  here  that  his  long  episcopate  of  upwards- 
of  thirty-one  years  in  Perugia  was  one  continuous  effort  ta 
lift  his  priests  up  to  the  sublime  height  of  intellectual  and 
spiritual  perfection  demanded  by  their  calling,  and  more 
particularly  required  by  the  crisis  through  which  are  pass- 
ing, at  the  present  time,  all  the  institutions  of  Christianity. 

.56 


SECOND  EDUCATION  OF  THE  CLERGY.  \  57 

Let  us  listen  to  one  who  had  the  privilege  of  being 
both  an  eye-witness  of  these  episcopal  labors  and  a  sharer 
in  the  Archbishop  of  Perugia's  admirable  system  of  educa- 
tion, as  regarded  both  seminarians  and  priests  engaged  in 
the  ministry. 

"  Every  year  he  never  failed  to  have  several  courses  of 
spiritual  exercises  given  to  his  priests,  so  that  every  three 
years  all  the  members  of  his  clergy,  rectors,  confessors,  and 
simple  priests,  could  in  their  turn  enjoy  the  benefit  of  this 
holy  repose.  He  restored  by  reiterated  ordinances  the 
practice  of  holding  monthly  conferences  for  the  solution 
of  questions  or  'cases'  of  moral  theology.  He  presided 
in  person  over  those  held  in  the  city  of  Perugia.  Else- 
where in  the  diocese  these  conferences  were  presided  over 
by  the  local  dignitaries.  .  .  .  In  1851  he  published  an  ordi- 
nance with  wise  regulations  concerning  all  clerical  students 
living  outside  of  the  Seminary.  He  selected  one  of  his 
oldest  and  best  priests  to  be  their  immediate  superior  and 
to  watch  over  their  conduct.  In  1856  he  published  the 
Diocesan  Catechism,  to  which  he  added  instructions  replete 
with  practical  wisdom  and  exhortations  to  parish  priests 
on  the  teaching  of  Christian  Doctrine.  In  1857  he  had 
printed  a  precious  '  Manual  of  Practical  Rules,'  addressed 
to  the  parochial  clergy,  as  a  guide  in  all  external  disci- 
pline and  the  exercise  of  their  ministry. 

"  For  the  greater  facility  of  catechising  little  children 
on  all  holydays,  and  to  keep  them  away  from  all  dan- 
gerous amusements,  he  established,  in  1858,  under  the 
direction  of  the  Oratorians,  and  with  the  help  of  the 
younger  clergy,  catechism  classes. 

"In  1859  ne  inaugurated  the  Scientific  Academy  of  St. 
Thomas  Aquinas,  in  order  chiefly  to  impel  the  clergy  to 
cultivate  the  higher  studies  and  the  scholastic  philosophy 
and  theology. 

"  To  prevent  abuses  and  profanations  in  the  functions 
of  the  public  worship  on  the  occasion  of  the  political  re- 
volution with  its  changes,  he  issued  in  1861  an  injunction 
to  his  clergy  recalling  the  obligation  of  following  to  the 


1  58  LIFE  OF  LEO  X11I. 

letter  the  prescriptions  of  the  liturgy  for  all  extraordinary- 
ceremonies  and  the  internal   regulation  of  their  churches. 

"  In  1863  he  sanctioned  the  establishment  of  the  Con- 
ferences of  St.  Vincent  of  Paul  for  all  his  priests,  and  ap 
proved  the  rules  of  the  same.  In  1866  a  circular  addressed 
to  them  laid  down  the  line  of  conduct  they  had  to  follow 
rn  the  midst  of  the  sad  circumstances  of  their  country,  so 
as  not  to  depart  from  the  dictates  of  evangelical  prudence 
and  priestly  moderation. 

"  As  soon  as  the  law  on  military  conscription  was  pub- 
lished, in  1869,  he  employed  all  his  zeal  and  industry  in 
purchasing  the  liberty  of  the  poorer  clerical  students  draft- 
ed, establishing  a  commission  for  that  object,  and  appeal- 
ing, not  without  success,  to  the  charity  of  his  people  for 
the  same  purpose. 

"  The  confiscation  by  the  state  of  all  Church  property 
and  revenues  having  reduced  a  multitude  of  priests  to  great 
poverty,  the  Cardinal,  in  1873,  founded  the  Society  of  St. 
Joachim,  as  a  mutual  relief  association  for  the  benefit  of 
indigent  and  infirm  priests. 

"In  1875,  feeling  keenly  the  great  gaps  created  in  the 
ranks  of  the  active  priesthood  by  the  dispersion  of  the 
regular  clergy,  he  founded  the  Pious  Union  of  Preachers  for 
the  better  diffusion  of  Christian  instruction  among  the  city 
population  and  the  country  parishes.  Missions,  pious  ex- 
ercises, catechistical  explanations,  First  Communions — for 
all  of  which  he  had  made  special  rules  in  1873 — were  once 
more  urged  by  him  as  the  great  means  of  breaking  to  the 
people  the  word  of  God,  and  a  greater  degree  of  solemnity 
was  given  to  them  everywhere  in  order  to  make  them  more 
attractive  and  more  fruitful. 

"Already  in  1872  he  had,  in  accord  with  the  city  rec- 
tors and  parish  priests,  established  for  all  the  churches  of 
Perugia  a  fixed  time-table  regulating  the  hours  for  Mass 
and  all  other  divine  offices,  for  preaching,  catechism,  etc., 
so  that  on  every  Sunday  and  holyday  the  people  of  the 
neighboring  districts  should  have  all  facility  for  fulfilling 
their  religious  duties  and  satisfying  their  piety.  In  1872, 


'59 


1  60  LJfE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

as  well  as  by  his  ordinance  of  1875,  he  urged  upon  all 
parish  priests  and  chaplains  the  necessity  of  being  un- 
wearied in  the  labor  of  catechising  the  little  children  in 
the  forenoon  of  Sundays  and  holydays,  and  the  adults  in 
the  afternoon. 

"When,  in  1877,  the  government  enacted  the  law  of 
obligatory  instruction,  one  of  the  articles  of  which,  with 
well-calculated  purpose,  forbade  the  teaching  of  cate- 
chism in  the  schools,  Cardinal  Pecci  made  a  fervent  ap- 
peal to  his  clergy,  pointing  out  to  them  the  way  in 
which  they  should  act  in  order  to  supplement  this  fun- 
damental defect — that  is,  by  a  more  general  and  unceas- 
ing use  of  all  means  and  opportunities  to  impart  religious 
instruction,  and  a  prudent  co-operation  to  that  effect  with 
the  teachers  of  elementary  schools.  He  laid  down  for  that 
purpose  wise  practical  rules,  all  bearing  the  impress  of  the 
most  enlightened  pastoral  zeal. 

"  We  ought  not  here  to  pass  over  in  silence  his  watch- 
ful solicitude  with  regard  to  the  external  conduct  of  his 
clergy.  In  his  pastoral  visitations  he  was  always  extremely 
respectful  and  courteous  toward  those  hard-working  priests. 
Still,  he  would  not  hesitate  to  reprove  them  with  fatherly 
frankness  and  affection  if  he  found  them  faulty  or  slothful  ; 
he  would  cheer  and  praise  them  when  he  saw  they  were 
zealous  and  exemplary.  As  to  the  parish  priests  recently 
appointed,  in  order  that  they  should  not  get  discouraged  in 
the  work  of  their  mission,  rendered  such  a  difficult  one  by 
the  political  changes,  he  summed  up  in  their  behalf,  in  a 
special  pastoral  letter,  the  most  salutary  advice  and  pre- 
cious reminders  furnished  by  his  long  experience.  These 
he  reduced  to  three  points,  priestly  spirit,  an  exemplary 
life,  and  priestly  knowledge,  under  which  heads  he  gath- 
ered together  the  obligations  and  prerogatives  of  a  good 
pastor. 

"  Lastly,  a  word  must  be  said  of  the  beautiful  order  and 
discipline  which  he  caused  to  prevail  in  the  celebrations  in 
his  cathedral  church.  He  was  always  on  the  best  of  terms 
with  the -chapter.  Hence  in  performing  his  regular  pas- 


ARCHBISHOP  PECCrs  LABORS  AND  HABITS.          \  6 1 

toral  visitations,  and  on  extraordinary  occasions,  he  found 
the  canons  most  ready  and  generous  in  providing  all  that 
was  needful  for  the  well-ordering  of  the  cathedral  clergy, 
for  the  exact  regulating  of  the  Psalmody,  and  all  that  could 
contribute  to  the  splendor  of  divine  worship  and  to  the 
repairs  and  decoration  of  the  great  temple  itself. 

"  No  wonder,  therefore,  that  both  Umbrians  and  for- 
eigners, on  assisting  there  at  divine  service,  were  wont  to 
express  their  admiration  not  only  at  the  rare  architecture 
and  precious  materials  of  the  edifice,  but  at  the  concourse 
of  worshippers  and  the  solemn  order  of  the  sacred  func- 
tions." 

This  is  a  bird's-eye  view  of  the  Archbishop's  labors. 
Before  dwelling  more  at  length  on  some  points  indicated 
in  the  above  summary,  the  reader  will  be  glad  to  pause  and 
consider  how  the  private  life  of  so  great  a  teacher  corre- 
sponded with  what  he  exacted  of  others. 

He  was  simple  in  his  habits,  indefatigably  laborious  in 
the  employment  of  his  time,  as  eager  and  as  keen  as  any 
young  student  for  the  acquisition  of  new  stores  of  knowl- 
edge, blameless  and  most  exemplary  in  his  private  life,,  and, 
ever  accessible  to  priests  and  to  people,  to  high  and  lowly 
who  required  his  ministry.  Firm,  calm,  and  unmoved  as  an! 
antique  statue  in  presence  of  the  persecutors  of  his  clergy 
and  the  perverters  of  his  flock  when  they  threatened  him! 
or  attempted  to  browbeat  or  to  overawe  him,  his  words; 
could  be  words  of  living  flame  when  kindled  by  the  wrong; 
done  to  others. 

The  Piedmontese  authorities  had  soon  found  out  that 
Cardinal  Pecci  was  not  one  that  they  could  intimidate  or 
circumvent,  or  draw  into  the  doing  of  a  single  deed  or  the 
utterance  of  a  single  word  which  could  be  construed  by  the 
most  unscrupulous  of  them  into  anything  that  seemed  like 
concession  or  compromise  or  compliance.  In  their  con* 
tests  with  him  they  were  always  baffled  ;  for  he  was  one 
who  studied  to  be  in  the  right,  and  who  made  sure  that 
his  adversaries  were  in  the  wrong.  They  learned,  at  their,- 
cost,  the  wisdom  of  letting-  him  alone.. 


1 62  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

His  learning,  joined  to  a  conscience  of  extreme  sensi- 
tiveness, never  allowed  him  to  yield  to  any  of  the  snares 
laid  for  him  by  men  who  sought  to  buy  acts  of  toleration 
or  kindness  to  the  suffering  clergy  and  people  of  Perugia 
by  some  slight  advance  to  the  ruling  powers  or  some  act  of 
deference  which  might  bear  the  seeming  of  acknowledging 
their  rightful  sway.  They  were  the  mightful,  not  the  right- 
ful, masters  in  Umbria.  He  did  not  by  word  or  act  of  his 
sanction  their  presence  or  their  pretensions.  But  he  did 
not  provoke  them.  His  dignified  courtesy,  even  when  his 
words  conveyed  a  refusal  and  a  rebuke,  inspired  respect  or 
calmed  irritation. 

Such  as  we  have  described  him,  such  he  wished  his 
priests  to  be — men  of  God,  His  worthy  ministers  ;  to  be 
looked  up  to  by  all,  to  be  looked  down  on  by  none. 

In  1866,  after  six  years  of  Piedmontese  misrule  and  of 
trials  the  bitterness  of  which  no  words  can  describe,  Car- 
dinal Pecci  found  it  necessary  to  relieve  his  own  heart  by 
laying  down  for  his  faithful  priests  such  common  rules  of 
conduct  as  might  guide  them  safely  through  the  difficulties 
and  perils  that  were  thickening  around  them. 

1866  for  Italy  and  for  the  Church  was  a  memorable 
year.  It  was  that  in  which  the  French  garrison  was  with- 
drawn from  Rome,  and  the  Pope  was  left  to  his  own  re- 
sources to  create  an  army  to  maintain  order  within  the 
provinces  still  left  to  him.  But  we  all  know  at  present 
±hat  the  famous  September  Convention  between  Napoleon 
III.  and  Victor  Emmanuel  covered  only  a  skilfully  devised 
;plan,  on  the  part  of  the  latter  at  least,  to  enable  him  to 
possess  himself  of  Rome  at  the  first  opportunity.  It  was 
.for  his  ministers  and  allies  to  create  it. 

On  June  29  also  they  celebrated  in  Rome  the  eight- 
eenth centenary  of  the  martyrdom  there  of  SS.  Peter  and 
Paul.  It  was  a  glorious  solemnity;  but  the  bishops  who 
came  to  the  Eternal  City  from  every  shore,  and  the  laity 
who  flocked  thither  after  their  bishops,  were,  during  the 
celebration,  like  children  in  the  house  of  a  parent  suffer- 
ing .the  keenest  affliction.  Their  joy  was  tempered  by 


RULES  OF  CONDUCT  FOR  HIS  PRIESTS.  \  63 

unspeakable  sadness ;  their  rejoicing  was  mingled  with 
tears. 

Mazzini  and  Garibaldi  had  both  issued  their  manifes- 
toes, and  both  clamored  for  the  possession  of  Rome  and 
the  extirpation  of  priests  and  Papacy.  So  there  was  in  the 
portions  of  the  Peninsula  already  subject  to  the  Piedmon- 
tese  rule  a  renewal  of  the  worst  outrages  against  religion, 
of  the  worst  oppression  against  the  priesthood,  even  though 
some  of  the  exiled  bishops  were  allowed  to  return.  In  the 
former  States  of  the  Church  the  position  of  the  clergy  be- 
came daily  more  and  more  intolerable,  the  moral  pressure 
put  upon  them  to  side  with  the  Revolution  being  like  the 
torture  inflicted  formerly  on  prisoners  subjected  to  the 
"question":  human  endurance  was  tested  to  its  utmost 
limits. 

This  was  more  particularly  the  case  in  the  Umbrian 
provinces,  on  account  of  their  proximity  to  Rome  and  the 
close  bond  which  had  so  long  united  the  people  to  the 
Holy  See. 

It  was  in  these  circumstances  that  Cardinal  Pecci  ad- 
dressed himself  to  his  dear  fellow  laborers.  Dear  they 
were  indeed  to  their  hard-working  and  devoted  chief,  who 
had  taken  such  unceasing  pains  in  forming  by  word  and 
example  the  young  among  them,  and  in  stimulating  and 
encouraging  the  holy  ambition  of  their  elders. 

"  No  matter  how  much  difficulties  and  dangers  multi- 
ply in  our  path  from  day  to  day,"  he  says,  "  a  true  and 
fervent  priest  must  not  on  that  account  lose  his  way,  nor 
fail  to  perform  his  duties,  nor  pause  from  the  fulfilment  of 
his  spiritual  mission  for  the  welfare  and  salvation  of  the 
human  family  and  the  maintenance  of  that  holy  religion 
of  which  he  is  the  herald  and  minister.  For  it  is  in  labors 
and  trials  that  priestly  virtue  waxes  strong  and  gets  puri- 
fied ;  the  blessed  and  all-restoring  action  of  his  divine  min- 
istry shines  forth  more  resplendently  in  times  of  great  need 
and  amid  'social  revolutions  and  transformations." 

The  terrible  changes  to  which  Italy  is  subjected  happen, 
the  Cardinal  says,  by  the  permission  of  Him  who  is  the 


1 64  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

Eternal  Pontiff  and  the  Supreme  Ruler  of  the  universe.  It 
is  from  Him  that  the  priest  must  seek  for  light  and  aid 
amid  the  darkness  and  the  throes  of  the  earthquake.  In 
that  light  it  behooves  the  minister  of  God  to  meditate  on 
his  own  imperfections  and  to  cherish  a  spirit  of  humility 
and  compunction. 

He  then  holds  up  to  his  priests,  as  a  summary  of  all  the 
virtues  which  present  circumstances  demand  that  they  should 
practise  in  a  more  perfect  manner,  the  admonition  of  St.  Paul 
to  Titus :  "  In  all  things  show  thyself  an  example  of  good 
works,  in  doctrine,  in  integrity,  in  gravity,  the  sound  word 
that  cannot  be  blamed."  *  "  An  exemplary  and  laborious 
life,"  the  Cardinal  goes  on  to  say,  "  a  life  animated  by  the 
spirit  of  charity  and  guided  by  the  dictates  of  evangelical 
prudence;  a  life  of  sacrifice  and  fatigue,  spent  in  doing 
good  to  others,  consumed  in  the  midst  of  the  world  for  no 
earthly  views  or  transitory  reward ;  and  that  frank,  noble, 
and  powerful  language,  the  sound  word  that  cannot  be  blamed, 
which  confounds  human  contradiction,  appeases  the  old 
hatred  of  the  world,  and  wins  even  the  respect  and  esteem 
of  our  adversaries  themselves.  At  all  times  it  is  the  sacred 
duty  of  the  man  who  dedicates  his  life  to  the  sanctuary  to 
make  himself  the  living  and  visible  mirror  of  good  example  ; 
but  this  is  sovereignly  necessary  when  social  commotions 
place  God's  minister  on  rough  and  slippery  ground  where 
he  may  meet  at  every  step  snares  and  pitfalls." 

And  so  the  wise  guide  of  the  Perugian  and  Umbrian 
clergy  continues  to  hold  up  the  lamp  before  his  followers 
in  the  priesthood.  They  must  be  learned.  In  our  day 
"  it  is  strictly  the  charge  of  the  priest  to  defend  doctrine 
assailed,  morality  perverted,  justice  ignored.  He  must 
stand  like  a  wall  of  brass  in  the  path  of  inundating  error 
and  heresy  spreading  like  a  pestilence." 

His  luminous  words  point  out  to  the  preachers  of  God's 
word  what  are  the  things  on  which  their  doctrine  can  be, 
in  our  day,  bestowed  to  the  best  advantage:  the  teach- 
ing and  training  of  the  young,  in  which  "  their  solicitude 

*  Titus  ii.  7,  8. 


THE  PATH  TO  BE  FOLLOWED  BY  THE  CLERGY.      165 

should  be  industrious  and  indefatigable  "  ;  the  careful  and 
regular  preparation  of  their  Gospel  lessons  for  the  people, 
"  and  the  scrupulous  development  of  the  maxims  of  sound 
morality."  As  to  religion  itself,  the  preacher  must  insist 
on  a  luminous  exposition  of  her  divine  prerogatives,  her 
extraordinary  and  lasting  services  to  mankind,  in  every 
condition  of  society  and  under  every  aspect,  especially  in 
what  pertains  to  true  civilization  and  real  progress. 

So  on  the  other  heads  of  his  instruction  the  same 
fatherly  and  experienced  hand  marks  out  the  line  of  con- 
duct to  be  followed  by  the  priest.  Beautiful  are  his  words 
on  the  "moral  integrity"  which  should  ever  adorn  the 
priestly  character.  "  The  moral  conduct  of  the  priest  is 
the  mirror  into  which  the  people  look  to  find  a  model  for 
their  own  demeanor.  .  .  .  Every  shadow,  every  stain  is  re- 
marked by  the  vulgar  eye;  and  the  mere  shadow  is  enough 
to  make  the  people  lose  their  esteem  of  priestly  worth.  .  .  . 
It  is  impossible  that  a  priest  who  lays  himself  open  to  such 
reproaches  or  suspicions,  who  has  the  name  of  being  self 
indulgent,  interested,  and  of  irregular  life,  should  give 
forth  that  fragrance  of  a  pure  life,  '  that  sweet  odor  of 
Christ,'  which  witnesses  to  our  worth  and  to  our  doctrine, 
as  well  in  the  estimation  of  those  who  are  saved  as  in  that 
of  those  who  perish." 

"  Behold,"  he  says  in  concluding,  "  the  path  which,  ac- 
cording to  my  judgment,  should  be  followed  by  the  clergy 
in  our  age.  This  path  will  lead  them  to  the  sure  attain- 
ment of  the  two  great  means  which  the  Divine  Master 
declares  to  be  indispensable  in  our  holy  ministry — holiness 
and  knowledge.  Let  every  priest  be  by  his  example  a 
pure  and  brilliant  light,  let  him  be  by  his  teaching  the  salt 
of  the  earth,  and  no  difficulties  can  prevent  his  fulfilling 
his  ministry  of  reparation."  * 

.  Now  let  us  see  how,  when  the  conflict  came,  the  Arch- 
bishop of  Perugia  could  wisely  direct  his  clergy  and  pro- 
tect their  dearest  interests. 

It  is  a  page  of  history  but  little  known  outside  of  Italy 
and  deserving  of  everlasting  remembrance. 
*  "Scelta,"  pp.  109-116. 


CHAPTER  XII. 

HOW  CARDINAL  PECCI  LED  HIS  BROTHER  BISHOPS  TO 
THE  BATTLE. — III.  DEFENDING  AND  DIRECTING  THE 
CLERGY  IN  THE  BATTLE. 

ON  September  the  24th,  1869,  Cardinal  Pecci  ad- 
dressed to  his  diocesans  a  touching  pastoral  let- 
ter on  the  "  Redeeming  poor  Clerical  Students  from  the 
Military  Conscription."  It  was  a  delicate,  almost  a  danger- 
ous, subject  to  write  upon.  But  there  was  an  imperative 
need  of  filling  up,  in  the  ranks  of  the  Umbrian  clergy,  the 
great  gaps  made  by  the  suppression  and  banishment  *  of 
the  priests  belonging  to  the  monastic  orders,  as  well  as  the 
yearly  voids  left  by  the  conscription  law  and  the  sad  fall- 
ing off  in  the  number  of  seminarians  and  candidates  for 
Holy  Orders.  In  a  circular  to  the  clergy  of  October  22 
following  the  Cardinal  designates  with  graphic  touch  the 
working  of  that  law  as  "  the  pitiless  axe  laid  at  the  roots 
of  the  Church's  nursery."  f  It  was  striking  the  tree  of 
the  priesthood  in  its  very  roots,  and  with  the  priest- 
hood annihilating  the  Church  in  Italy.  This  is  precisely 
what  such  Italian  statesmen  as  Prime  Minister  Depretis 
now  openly  confess  to  be  the  purpose  of  their  legislation 
and  policy. 

*  In  a  note  to  the  Protest  on  the  Royal  Exequatur,  mentioned  on  p.  171, 
it  is  said:  "  Omitting  the  mention  of  many  other  instances  of  banishment 
and  concentration,  .  .  .  [we  take  that]  of  the  instantaneous  expulsion  and 
deportation  to  Sardinia  of  the  Capuchin  Fathers  of  Todi,  of  the  Reformed 
Franciscans  of  Massa,  of  the  Observantines  and  Reformed  of  Orvieto, 
which  took  place  in  last  May  [1863],  without  any  judicial  process,  and 
under  military  escort,  as  well  ns  the  general  upsetting  and  exiling  of  all 
the  Mendicant  communities  of  Umbria  which  has  just  been  accomplish- 
ed ("  Scelta,"  p.  369). 

f  La  scure  inesorabile  che  2  niessa  alle  radici  del  vivaio  dclla  c/iicsa 
(ibidem,  p.  519). 

166 


DEPLORABLE  CONDITION  OF  THE  CLERGY.          l6f 

From  1859  t°  1869  statistical  figures  show,  as  the  Cardi- 
nal states  in  the  beginning  of  his  pastoral,  that  the  number 
of  deaths  among  his  clergy  exceeded  by  thirty  the  number 
of  ordinations  to  the  priesthood. 

"  It  is  easy  to  see  from  this  moment  forward,"  he  says, 
"  that  the  burden  of  military  service  must  inevitably  fall 
on  all  young  men  who  have  devoted  themselves  to  the 
clerical  career.  We  are  deeply  saddened  by  this ;  we  are 
tortured  by  the  thought  that  so  many  parishes  will  ask  us 
for  pastors,  while  we  shall  have  none  to  give  them ;  that 
so  many  pious  populations  will  ask  for  the  food  of  Chris- 
tian instruction  and  the  comfort  of  the  sacraments,  and 
that  no  one  will  be  found  to  minister  to  them ;  and  that, 
such  a  state  of  things  continuing,  there  is  nothing  to  pre- 
vent religion  from  dying  out  in  these  country-places  for  the 
very  lack  of  hands  to  cultivate  it." 

Then,  with  a  simple  and  earnest  eloquence  in  which  one 
feels  the  loving  pastor's  heart  in  every  phrase,  Cardinal 
Pecci  goes  on  to  say  how  an  appeal  should  be  made  to  the 
people  of  the  diocese  in  order  to  create  a  fund  for  purchas- 
ing the  freedom  of  poor  young  clerics  whose  talents  and 
virtues  hold  out  the  promise  of  their  being  worthy  and 
efficient  priests. 

"  This  work,"  he  says,  "  is  eminently  religious  and  chari- 
table. .  .  .  Even  considered  in  its  social  aspect  it  has  a 
value  and  an  importance  that  are  unquestionable.  For 
there  can  be  no  doubt  but  that  the  lack  of  priests  would  se- 
riously injure  the  religious  and  moral  culture  of  the  peo- 
ple, on  which  depend  order,  tranquillity,  and  the  well-being 
of  the  entire  community.  We  expect,  therefore,  no  one 
among  sincere  Catholics,  no  matter  how  straitened  and 
burdened  financially,  will  refuse  to  do  what  he  can  and 
what  piety  and  religion  suggest.  Above  all,  we  trust  to 
the  zeal  and  solicitude  of  our  clergy.  .  .  ." 

This  to  his  diocesans.  Then  he  lays  down  the  statutes 
for  the  commission  which  he  establishes  for  such  a  noble 
object. 

A  month  after  the  pastoral  letter  he  addressed  a  circu- 


l68  LIFE  OF  LEO  XTIT. 

lar  to  his  parish  priests,  urging  on  them  the  greatest  zeal 
and  generosity  in  forwarding  the  labor  of  the  commission. 

"  I  know  the  straits  to  which  the  clergy  have  been 
reduced,"  he  writes,  "  but  I  also  know  the  spirit  of  sacri- 
fice and  charity  which  animates  them.  Christian  charity 
does  not  know  and  should  not  know  what  difficulty  is,  in 
a  work  especially  such  as  the  present,  which  aims  at  keep- 
ing off  the  pitiless  axe  with  which  they  strike  at  the  roots 
of  our  young  trees  in  the  nursery  of  tlte  Church.  .  .  . 

"  If  we  see  lay  societies  of  mutual  help  making  such 
strenuous  efforts  to  succeed  in  their  purpose,  how  can  we 
help  making  equal  efforts  to  rescue  so  many  young  men 
who  were  being  educated  and  trained  for  the  priesthood, 
and  who  are  dragged  away  to  the  ranks  of  the  army  and 
the  exercises  of  a  military  camp?  If  the  good  work  we 
have  taken  in  hand  should  not  succeed,  then  we  may  be 
sure  that  the  education  of  the  priesthood  and  the  semi- 
naries will  be  given  up  altogether."  * 

The  commission  did  succeed,  thanks  not  only  to  the 
excellence  of  the  charity  which  it  advocated,  but  thanks 
as  well  to  the  hearty  zeal  with  which  Cardinal  Pecci  plead- 
ed the  cause  of  these  young  students — a  zeal  which  his 
words  and  example  communicated  to  both  people  and 
clergy. 

Thus  appealed  he  in  1869.  But  there  were  other  needs 
among  the  clergy  which  touched  his  fatherly  heart  no  less 
deeply.  Foremost  among  these  was  the  utter  destitution 
to  which  so  many  ecclesiastics  had  been  reduced  since  1860 
by  the  sequestration  of  all  Church  property  and  revenues, 
and  the  conversion  of  the  little  left  to  the  clergy  into  slate 
bonds.  The  whole  system  of  this  legislative  plunder  was 
devised,  calculated,  wrought  out  scientifically  either  to  ex- 
tinguish the  clergy  altogether  by  deterring  young  men 
from  joining  the  ranks  of  a  hopelessly  degraded  and  im- 
poverished priesthood,  or  by  making  of  all  priests  thus  de- 
pendent on  the  wretched  pittance  irregularly  and  grudg- 
ingly dealt  out  by  the  state  treasury  the  abject  slaves  of 
*  "  Scelta,"  pp.  516-520. 


A  PRIVA  TE  RELIEF  FUND  ESTABLISHED.  1 69 

an  inhuman  and  anti-Christian  power.  The  miserable  dole 
obtained  from  the  government  of  Victor  Emmanuel — and 
the  same  applies  to  King  Umberto's  administration — barely 
kept  the  recipients  from  starvation,  if  they  would  with  it 
keep  a  roof  above  them  and  decent  clerical  raiment  on  their 
backs.  When  sickness  and  old  age  with  its  infirmities  came 
to  them  no  words  can  describe  their  destitution.  A  poor 
priest,  in  sickness  and  old  age,  is  everywhere  one  deserving 
of  tender  commiseration.  But  in  once  beautiful,  fertile,  and 
bountiful  Italy  the  Revolution  has  contrived  to  make  the 
lot  of  the  poor,  sick,  and  aged  priest  one  of  indescribable 
hardship. 

Cardinal  Pecci  exhorted  and  encouraged  the  clergy  of 
his  diocese  to  establish  a  private  Relief  Fund  and  a  So- 
dality to  administer  it.  The  Sodality  was  composed  of 
the  members  of  the  clergy.  It  was  called  the  "  Pious  Union 
of  St.  Joachim  for  Needy  Ecclesiastics."  Every  member  paid 
into  the  fund  an  annual  fee  of  five  lire  (one  dollar,  or  four 
shillings  English  money).  These  regular  contributions,  to- 
gether with  the  donations  of  benefactors  and  the  voluntary 
offerings  of  the  faithful,  brought  timely  and  indispensable 
relief  to  many  a  lowly  roof  where  poor  priests,  born  in  opu- 
lence, devoted  from  their  youth  to  the  holy  ministry,  after 
having  lost  their  position  and  being  stripped  of  their  own 
lawful  patrimony,  were  left  to  pine  away  unhelped,  un- 
pitied,  unnoticed  by  the  spoiler. 

We  cannot  refrain  here  from  denouncing  to  the  indigna- 
tion of  the  civilized  world  the  crowning  cruelty  and  mean- 
ness of  the  Italian  government,  established,  forsooth,  in  the 
name  of  liberty,  of  progress,  of  civilization !  Not  satisfied 
with  sequestrating  all  ecclesiastical  property,  seizing  upon 
the  residences  of  the  bishops  and  the  revenue  (tnensa  vesco- 
vile]  established  for  their  permanent  support,  it  refused  to 
allow  any  but  those  whom,  for  one  political  reason  or  an- 
other, it  approved  of  to  take  possession  of  their  residences 
and  to  enjoy  what  the  government  thought  fit  of  their 
revenues.  This  was  the  working  of  the  royal  exequatur 
mentioned  elsewhere.  To  the  eternal  honor  of  the  bishops 


I  70  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

of  Italy  be  it  said  that  most  of  those  who  were  appointed 
by  the  Holy  See  could  not  be  brought  to  truckle  to  the 
usurping  government,  or  to  come  to  any  compromise  with 
the  new  principles  and  the  new  masters  of  Italy,  and  so 
wore  refused  the  use  of  the  episcopal  residence  and  the 
enjoyment  of  their  salaries. 

The  Holy  Father,  thanks  to  the  liberality  of  the  Catho- 
lic world,  to  the  Peter's  Pence  contributed  by  every  land, 
was  able  to  bestow  on  these  bishops  a  temporary  allowance 
barely  sufficient  to  provide  for  their  necessities.  Well,  the 
Depretis  government  found  that  this  was  defeating  their 
darling  purpose — to  make  bishops  and  clergy,  so  long  as 
any  such  remained  in  Italy,  entirely  dependent  on  the 
state.  Forthwith  a  law  was  passed  compelling  bishops 
and  all  other  religious  persons  thus  receiving  from  the 
Pope  a  regular  help  or  stipend  in  the  way  of  money  to 
pay  into  the  treasury  a  tax  of  one-third  of  the  whole  until 
such  time  as  they  could  prove  that  such  aid  in  money  had 
ceased  to  be  given  to  them  ! 

We  doubt  if  Nero,  or  Diocletian,  or  Julian  the  Apos- 
tate would  have  condescended  to  so  base  a  device. 

It  is  due  to  the  reader  who  is  interested  in  the  public 
acts  of  the  great  personage  whose  life  we  are  sketching  to 
show,  ere  concluding  this  chapter,  how  nobly  Cardinal  Pecci 
could  defend  the  interests  of  his  persecuted  clergy  and  in- 
spire his  brother  bishops  with  his  own  courage  and  deter- 
mination. 

We  have  from  the  pen  of  the  Archbishop  of  Perugia 
one  of  those  outspoken  and  fearless  protests  addressed  to 
King  Victor  Emmanuel,  and  signed  by  all  the  bishops  of 
Umbria  and  the  Marches.  It  is  dated  August  I,  1864,  and 
is  directed  against  the  law  which  compelled  the  members  of 
the  clergy  without  distinction,  and  the  clerical  students  in 
the  seminaries,  to  serve  in  the  army  or  navy  the  regular 
term  imposed  on  laymen. 

It  was  a  vain  appeal.  As  well  might  they  have  pleaded 
to  the  famished  tiger  to  let  go  its  prey  and  forego  the 
opportunity  of  satiating  its  rabid  hunger,  as  ask  Victor 


AN  ELOQ  UENT  REMONSTRANCE.  171 

Emmanuel,  or  rather  the  man  who  ruled  and  used  him,  to 
forego  the  opportunity,  now  that  he  had  the  power,  of 
degrading  and  extinguishing  the  Catholic  clergy,  and  with 
them  the  Church  itself.  This  was  precisely  what  the  Revo- 
lution aimed  at,  what  the  kingdom  of  Italy,  its  legislature 
and  administration,  were  organized  for.  Surely  they  must 
do  their  own  proper  work. 

None  the  less  eloquent,  courageous,  and  victorious  is 
this  noble  remonstrance : 

"  SlRE :  With  souls  deeply  grieved  we  come  once  more 
to  bring  before  your  majesty  our  respectful  but  serious 
complaints  about  the  evils  which  are  heaped  unceasingly 
on  the  churches  given  us  to  govern :  we  are  willing  to  hope 
that  our  voice  may  yet  be  listened  to  and  that  justice  may 
be  done.  During  each  of  the  last  four  years  we  have  raised 
our  voices  with  increasing  frequency,  and  have  given  ut- 
terance to  the  grief  of  our  holy  religion,  afflicted  and  op- 
pressed in  so  many  ways — by  the  setting  aside  ecclesiasti- 
cal immunities ;  by  depriving  her  ministers  of  the  necessary 
means  of  subsistence  ;  by  preventing  all  free  intercourse 
between  the  Head  of  the  Church,  the  pastors,  and  the 
people ;  by  withdrawing  from  all  dependence  on  the  bish- 
ops both  schools  and  institutions  of  piety  which  these 
same  bishops  had  themselves  founded,  or  which  had  been 
placed  under  their  care  and  government  by  the  pious 
founders ;  by  profaning,  or  even  destroying,  the  sacred  tem- 
ples ;  by  expelling  from  their  homes  the  Religious  Orders, 
and  by  so  many  other  acts  which  it  would  be  too  long  and 
too  sad  to  enumerate. 

"  The  fact  that  no  heed  whatever  was  paid  to  our  com- 
plaints would  have  induced  us  to  remain  silent,  contenting 
ourselves  hencefonvard  with  lamenting  and  praying.  But 
a  new  wrong  which  is  about  to  be  committed  against  the 
Church  compels  us  to  have  recourse  to  your  majesty  and 
to  unite  our  voice  to  that  of  our  flocks. 

.  "  Very  limited  as  is  at  the  present  moment  the  number 
of  young  clerical  students  who  may,  at  the  request  of  their 
bishops,  be  exempted  from  military  conscription,  neverthe- 


I  72  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

less  by  a  new  law  it  is  proposed  to  annul  all  these  exemp- 
tions— a  measure  which  would  go  very  near  to  extinguish 
altogether  the  priestly  ministry.  They  allege,  to  excuse 
this  law,  the  singular  pretext  that  all  citizens  are  equally 
obliged  to  support  the  burdens  of  the  state,  no  matter 
how  these  may  happen  to  be  felt.  But  without  desiring 
to  recall  to  mind  here  how  little  this  reason  availed  to  save 
the  clergy  in  other  cases  where  they  were  made  the  subject 
of  injurious  and  odious  exceptions,  we  must  press  upon 
your  consideration  that  the  choice  of  her  ministers  was 
not  imposed  upon  the  Church  by  any  human  law,  but 
that  it  is  a  sacred  right  which  comes  to  her  from  her 
Divine  Founder.  Wherefore,  instead  of  suppressing  such 
right,  it  should  in  no  wise  be  either  restricted  or  dimin- 
ished. .  .  . 

" .  .  .  If  the  holy  ministry  could  be  abolished  the 
Church  would  be  destroyed ;  and  this  was  exactly  what 
Julian  the  Apostate  vainly  attempted  to  accomplish  by 
commanding  that  all  the  subjects  of  the  Empire,  without 
any  distinction  whatever,  should  be  compelled  to  bear 
arms.  .  .  .  This  tyrannical  law  was  soon  repealed  by  Va- 
lentinian,  who,  like  the  great  Constantine,  recognized  the 
right  of  the  Church  to  choose  freely  her  own  minis- 
ters. .  .  . 

"We  shall  not  stop  here  to  recall  to  your  mind,  sire, 
what  long  and  important  studies  are  necessary,  besides  the 
qualities  of  the  heart,  to  enable  young  ecclesiastics  to  be 
thoroughly  prepared  for  their  most  important  functions — 
studies  which  usually  have  to  be  made  at  the  very  age 
when  young  men  are  called  away  by  the  conscription  law. 
Hence  it  is  that  it  would  be  almost  impossible  for  a  young 
man,  even  if  he  should  during  his  long  term  of  military 
service  keep  his  soul  pure,  and  not  lose  amid  so  many 
obstacles  and  seductions  the  spirit  of  his  vocation,  to 
afterwards  undergo  a  long  training  in  order  to  enter  the 
sanctuary.  .  .  .  The  life  of  a  cleric  is  incompatible  with 
that  of  the  soldier. 

"...    Statesmen  are  solicitous   that   a   single    family 


DEFENDING  HIS  PRIESTS.  I  73 

should  not  become  extinct  in  the  state;  will  there,  then, 
be  no  care  taken  that  the  hierarchy  of  the  Church  shall 
be  maintained,  supremely  and  vitally  important  as  its  ex- 
istence is  to  the  entire  Christian  family  ?  .  .  . " 

"...  Whether  it  come  from  the  pursuit  of  temporal 
interests,  or  from  bad  education,  or  from  the  little  respect 
paid  in  our  day  to  the  priestly  character,  the  greater  num- 
ber of  candidates  for  the  ministry  come,  in  our  times,  from 
poor  families  ;  and  they  have  only  the  means  to  perse- 
vere in  and  follow  out  their  vocation  given  them  by  their 
bishops  to  return  to  the  seminary.  And  these  means  are  so 
restricted  that  we  often  see,  with  a  real  pain  to  our  father- 
ly heart,  young  men  very  dear  to  us  taken  away  from  the 
seminary  in  the  very  midst  of  their  course.  .  .  .  We  are 
only  allowed  to  purchase  the  exemption  of  one  student  for 
every  twenty  thousand  inhabitants  ;  and  so  these  young 
men  are  forced  into  a  profession  entirely  opposed  to  their 
character  and  wishes.  In  the  grief  of  our  souls  we  could  not 
persuade  ourselves  that,  with  all  we  hear  about  individual 
liberty,  such  liberty  should  not  be  allowed  in  the  most  serious 
affair  with  which  man  has  to  deal  in  this  life — the  choice  of 
his  own  profession,  and  the  full  liberty  to  consecrate  Jmnself 
to  God" 

The  Cardinal  pushes  aside  the  vulgar  objections  drawn 
from  "a  too  great  abundance  of  priests,  far  above  the 
spiritual  needs  of  the  people."  That  reason  does  not  hold 
at  present.  "  Where,  not  many  years  ago,  there  were 
many  assistant  priests,  now  the  rector  is  left  alone  to  face 
the  manifold  duties  of  his  office.  Besides,  vocations  are 
injuriously  influenced  by  the  spirit  of  the  age,  by  irreligious 
maxims,  the  corruption  of  morals,  the  anti-Christian  edu- 
cation given  to  youth.  .  .  .  Then  there  is  the  taking  away 
from  the  clergy  of  their  means  of  honorable  subsistence, 
the  attraction  toward  lucrative  secular  avocations,  the  out- 
rageous persecution  of  the  priesthood  by  falsehoods,  calum- 
nies, ridicule,  sarcasm,  insults  offered  in  the  house  of  God 
itself,  by  lawsuits,  fines,  imprisonment,  all  inflicted  even  on 
persons  occupying  the  highest  stations  in  the  Church. 


I  74  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

"  For  all  these  reasons,  if  at  all  times  it  was  an  act  of 
virtue  and  self-denial  to  consecrate  one's  self  to  the  service 
of  the  altar  and  to  embrace  the  clerical  profession,  it  is  a 
thousand  times  more  so  in  our  day.  .  .  . 

"Sire,  the  supreme  good  of  a  nation  is  its  morality,  and 
this  only  comes  from  religion  and  from  the  salutary  influ- 
ence of  its  ministers.  What  would  an  army  have  to  defend 
in  a  people  without  faith,  without  morals,  in  a  people  sunk 
in  corruption  ?  If  you  take  away  Christian  instruction,  the 
preaching  of  the  Gospel,  the  frequentation  of  the  sacra- 
ments, the  worship  and  fear  of  God,  can  the  fear  of  armed 
men  keep  the  multitude  faithful  to  their  duties  ?  And  in 
the  army  itself  will  not  morality  be  the  result  of  that 
created  in  the  nation  by  the  influence  of  religion  ? 

"  We  beseech  you,  sire,  to  consider  well  to  what  depths 
of  corruption  a  community  would  descend  if,  on  the  one 
hand,  all  the  restraints  of  good  morals  were  relaxed,  and,  on 
the  other,  all  the  avenues  to  evil  were  thrown  wide  open  ! 
It  is  a  sad  avowal  that  we  are  compelled  to  make,  and  that 
from  the  evidence  of  facts.  A  libertine  press  no  longer 
spares  any  holy  person  or  holy  thing  ;  the  theatrical  amuse- 
ments are  full  of  impiety  and  obscenity ;  infamous  resorts 
are  opened  to  enable  the  sinner  to  sin  safely ;  blasphemers 
assail  with  impunity  God,  the  Virgin  Mother,  the  Saints — 
nothing  restrains  the  sacrilegious  tongue ;  the  sacred  im- 
ages are  insulted ;  crosses  are  torn  down  ;  churches,  even 
such  as  are  consecrated,  are  turned  into  market-houses  or 
are  pulled  down ;  the  ministers  of  God  are  persecuted  even 
in  the  church  itself,  even  in  the  very  functions  of  their 
ministry  which  regard  the  conscience.  And  now,  as  if  all 
this  were  little  or  nothing,  is  the  sacred  ministry  itself  to 
be  abolished  ?  Our  mind  is  confounded  and  our  heart 
is  torn  with  grief  when  we  think  that,  besides  all  the 
calamities  that  we  here  indicate  rapidly,  the  priesthood  it- 
self shall  fail,  and  with  it  all  remedy,  all  comfort. 

"  What  will  become  of  the  Christian  people  when  they 
are  deprived  of  the  necessary  teachers  of  childhood,  of  the 
men  who  comfort  the  widow  and  the  orphan,  of  those 


A   PATHETIC  APPEAL. 


175 


who  soften  the  pains  and  labors  of  the  present  life  by 
the  thought  and  hope  of  the  life  to  come,  who  wipe  away 
the  tears  of  the  afflicted,  who  direct  the  doubting  and  hesi- 
tating by  words  of  good  counsel,  and  cheer  the  last  hours 
of  the  dying? 

"  And  if  our  own  people  lack  priests  for  their  need, 
where  shall  we  find  those  generous  ministers  of  God  who, 
breaking  the  dearest  ties  of  the  human  soul  here  below, 
go  forth  among  savage  peoples  to  preach  the  Gospel,  and 
to  plant  there  the  seeds  of  civilization  with  the  truths  of 
Christian  faith  ? 

"  We  are  not  exaggerating,  sire :  such  would  be  the  re- 
sults of  this  unblessed  law,  of  which  it  would  be  impossible 
to  predicate  whether  it  is  more  hurtful  to  the  Church  or 
to  the  state  itself. 

"After  this,  it  is  not  surprising  that  no  civilized  nation 
in  Europe,  even  the  most  warlike  and  in  the  time  when 
they  most  needed  soldiers,  ever  thought  of  enacting  such 
laws.  And  will  it  be  Italy,  Catholic  Italy,  which  will  give 
the  world  so  unhappy  an  example  ?  .  .  . 

"  For  pity's  sake  put,  once  for  all,  a  stop  to  all  these 
laws  which  succeed  each  other,  tread  upon  each  other,  and 
are  heaped  up  one  on  the  other,  all  injuring  the  Church — 
an  injury  which  invariably  redounds  as  well  to  the  injury  of 
the  state."  * 

*  "  Scelta  degli  Atti,"  pp.  373-80,  Aug.  I,  1864. 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

THE  BENEFACTOR  OF  PERUGIA — SOWING  AND  PLANTING 
BEFORE  THE  STORM  AND  THE  EARTHQUAKE. — A  BIRD'S- 
EYE  VIEW  OF  THE  FIELD. 


€( 


'VEN  in  the  political  and  in  the  material  orders  Arch- 
bishop Pecci's  enlightened  and  active  charity  found 
means  and  opportunities  of  benefiting  Perugia  and  her  citi- 
zens, as  well  as  his  entire  diocese.  In  the  very  beginning  of 
his  episcopal  administration — in  the  autumn  of  1846 — the 
same  unquiet  spirit  which  was  already  playing  the  tyrant  in 
Rome  stirred  up  a  riot  in  Perugia.  The  excited  crowds 
were  attempting  to  break  open  the  prisons  and  to  liberate, 
together  with  all  persons  detained  there  for  political  of- 
fences, all  the  criminals  of  the  country.  Already  they  had 
taken  up  arms  to  resist  the  Pontifical  troops,  and  the  city 
was  threatened  with  bloodshed  and  arson,  when  the  Arch- 
bishop appeared  upon  the  scene,  interposed  his  pacific 
authority  between  the  combatants,  and  put  an  end  to  the 
conflict. 

Worse  calamities  threatened  Umbria  and  its  capital  in 
1849,  when,  after  the  taking  of  Rome  by  the  French  troops, 
the  bands  of  Garibaldi,  under  the  command  of  the  notori- 
ous Arcioni  and  Forbes,  committed  all  kinds  of  outrages 
around  Perugia  and  in  the  city  itself.  No  priestly  influence 
could  soften  the  fanatical  ferocity  of  these  brigands,  whom 
English  and  American  anti-papal  prejudice  has  exalted  into 
heroes,  whereas  they  were  only  lawless  free-booters  delight- 
ing especially  in  sacrilege  and  in  insulting,  persecuting,  and 
massacring  (whenever  they  could)  defenceless  and  harm- 
less priests  and  monks. 

When  the  Austrians  under  Prince  Von  Lichtenstein  ad- 
vanced to  repel  these  bands  and  to  protect  the  Pontifical 

provinces  from  their  raids,  Monsignor  Pecci,  who  knew  the 

176 


CARDINAL  PECCrS  BENEFACTIONS. 


177 


temper  of  his  people  well  and  their  rooted  dislike  to  these 
foreigners,  deemed  it  vital  to  the  peace  of  Perugia  to  pre- 
vent the  city  from  being  occupied  by  them.  He  therefore 
went  to  meet  the  Austrian  general,  and  his  wise  counsels 
once  more  prevailed  and  saved  his  people  from  new  ca- 
lamities. 

In  1854 — made  remarkable  in  Perugia  by  the  celebra- 
tion in  February  of  Monsignor  Pecci's  elevation  to  the 
Cardinalate — the  whole  of  Central  Italy  suffered  severely 
from  dearth,  amounting  almost  to  a  famine.  To  this  were 
added  earthquakes,  filling  the  people  with  terror,  as  if  the 
divine  anger  were  about  to  let  loose  all  its  plagues  against 
an  ungrateful  and  guilty  country. 

Cardinal  Pecci's  fatherly  forethought  had  already  sug- 
gested the  establishment  of  Monti  Frnwcntari,  or  "  Deposits 
of  Grain,"  in  every  country  parish,  which  would,  in  seasons 
of  scarcity,  render  the  poor  country-folk  the  same  services 
which  the  Monti  di  Pieta,  or  Popular  Loan  Banks,  so  long 
known  and  so  heartily  appreciated  in  Italy,  had  ever  ren- 
dered to  the  laboring  classes. 

When,  in  the  beginning  of  1854,  the  scarcity  began  to 
be  most  distressing,  and  the  bread,  which  is  the  staple  of 
food  for  the  masses  of  the  Italian  population,  was  either 
at  famine  prices  or  could  not  be  obtained  at  all,  the  Car- 
dinal showed  both  his  unbounded  charity  and  his  wonder- 
ful executive  skill. 

He  gave  the  example  to  the  rich  and  to  Religious 
Communities  by  opening  in  the  episcopal  residence  itself  a 
free  kitchen  for  the  poor,  with  daily  doles  of  unprepared 
food.  The  son  of  Countess  Anna  Pecci  was  mindful  of  the 
examples  of  the  mother  on  whose  tombstone  it  is  inscribed 
that  she  was  "  the  feeder  of  the  needy."  *  Nourishing,  sub- 
stantial soups  and  broths  were  every  morning  dealt  out  to 
the  needy  as  long  as  the  distress  lasted.  It  seemed  to  cost 
the  good  Archbishop  no  effort  to  deprive  himself  of  all  but 
the  strict  necessaries  to  himself  and  his  household  when 
Christ's  poor  were  suffering — so  few  were  his  own  personal 

*  A  Itrix  pauptrum. 


1  /i>  LIFE  UF  LEO  XIII. 

wants,  so  frugal  and  self-denying  the  life  which,  in  truth,, 
resembled  that  of  an  Eastern  ascetic. 

But  he  also  made  his  clergy  and  all  the  wealthy  mem- 
bers of  his  flock  his  zealous  co-operators  at  this  season. 
The  revolutionary  societies  always  found  in  the  periodical 
returns  of  scarcity  a  ready  argument  against  the  Pontifical 
government :  the  scarcity  and  the  consequent  popular  dis- 
tress, they  said  (and  they  were  believed),  were  caused  by  the 
authorities,  who  bought  up  and  hoarded  the  grain  and  spe- 
culated upon  it,  unmindful  of  the  starving  people. 

Cardinal  Pecci  thought  that  the  best  answer  to  this  was- 
to  take  counsel  with  the  provincial  government  and  the 
municipal  magistrates  in  providing  food  for  the  really 
needy,  in  getting  profitable  labor,  sufficient  wages,  and 
cheap  provisions  for  all  who  were  able  to  work. 

On  January  7,  1854,  he  published  a  short  and  eloquent 
pastoral  letter,  appealing  to  his  people  to  exert  themselves 
in  the  reigning  distress  as  true  Christians,  and  organizing  a 
"  Commission  of  Charity "  under  his  own  personal  direc- 
tion, the  membership  of  which  embraced  clergy  and  laity, 
extending  its  branches  all  over  the  diocese,  and  effectually 
meeting  all  the  needs  of  the  population. 

The  motives  suggested  in  his  urgent  appeal  to  his  dio- 
cesans, and  the  active  measures  which  he  prescribed  in  the 
rules  of  this  Commission  of  Charity,  are  alike  admirable, 
showing  how  little  the  Cardinal  wished  to  encourage  men- 
dicancy or  idleness,  and  how  anxious  he  was  to  stimulate 
all  able-bodied  persons  to  work  by  finding  remunerative 
labor  for  them  in  their  distress,  and  preventing  little  tra- 
ders from  speculating  on  it. 

"  To  give  to  the  poor,"  he  says,  "  from  out  our  super- 
abundance is  a  duty  imposed  by  the  Divine  Master  on  all 
Christians,  without  exception  of  times  or  persons.  But  to 
help  them  with  something  more  than  what  is  superfluous, 
by  limiting  our  desires  and  what  we  make  use  of  to  live 
upon,  when  it  is  required  by  their  extraordinary  necessities 
that  we  should  do  so  ;  to  help  them  so  because  they  bear 
the  image  of  our  Heavenly  Father  and  their  condition 


179 


1  8O  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

touches  our  brotherly  hearts  as  if  it  were  our  own  ;  to  aim, 
in  fact,  at  enabling  them  to  bless  God's  fatherly  providence 
in  their  distress,  because  it  is  His  hand  which  is  reached  out 
to  them  in  ours,  .  .  .  this  is  what  shows  in  its  proper  light 
the  greatness  and  helpfulness  of  Christian  beneficence." 

On  February  25,  1854,  immediately  after  the  festivities 
on  the  occasion  of  his  promotion,  he  urged  the  active  pro- 
secution of  this  noble  charity  on  his  parochial  clergy  by  a 
circular  letter,  in  which  he  warmly  pleaded  the  cause  of  the 
distressed,  and  laid  down  the  most  practical  rules  for  mak- 
ing the  Commission  of  Charity  a  success  everywhere.  He 
again  presses  them  to  establish  the  Monti  Frumcntari  in 
their  respective  localities.* 

"Our  zeal  and  charity,"  he  writes,  "which  should  be  the 
soul  of  our  pastoral  mission,  can  neither  be  inoperative  nor 
indifferent  in  presence  of  the  manifold  miseries  which  now 
afflict  our  flock,  and  which  come  this  year  from  the  failure 
of  the  harvests  and  the  scarcity  of  provisions.  If  our  Lord, 
after  having  been  so  long  irritated,  and  having  so  long 
waited  patiently  and  in  vain  that  we  should  amend  our 
lives  and  correct  our  evil  conduct,  has  at  length  lifted  the 
scourge  over  our  heads,  .  .  .  our  people  should  not  there- 
fore be  left  without  the  comfort  and  help  of  religion.  .  .  . 

"  Explain  to  your  people  what  are  the  real  causes  of  the 
present  distress.  .  .  .  Take  away  from  the  minds  of  the 
fearful  or  the  unwary  the  exaggerated  and  deceptive  illu- 
sions which  the  evil-minded  propagate,  that  their  sufferings 
come  from  the  selfish  schemes  of  speculators  or  the  negli- 
gence of  the  government."  f 

During  the  troublous  times  of  1859  an(*  l8^o  Cardinal 
Pecci  had  abundant  opportunity  for  "giving  other  proofs 
of  his  pastoral  and  patriotic  charity  toward  his  flock. 
He  employed  the  warmest  and  most  fatherly  exhorta- 
tions to  dissuade  the  leaders  of  the  insurrection  from  the 
acts  which  led  to  the  fatal  conflict  of  June  20,  1859,  which 
was  afterward  painted  as  '  the  Massacre  of  Perugia ';  but 
t.i .-  gentle  voice  of  the  Archbishop,  unhappily,  was  not  lis- 

* ' '  Scelta."  p.  506.  f  Ibid.  p.  508. 


THE  IXVASION  OF  1860.  j  g  r 

tened  to,  and  was  overborne  by  the  secret  impulsion  given 
to  the  insurgents  by  the  prime  movers  in  the  rising.  Sad- 
dened by  his  ineffectual  attempts  to  prevent  the  bloody 
scenes  which  followed,  he  bestowed  all  his  kindest  efforts 
on  assuaging  the  bitter  suffering  which  followed.  He  suc- 
ceeded in  obtaining  pardon  for  the  guilty  subjects  of  the 
Pope,  as  well  as  compensation  to  all  those  whose  property 
had  been  injured."* 

At  length  came  the  invasion  of  1860. 

We  prefer  to  give  what  followed  in  the  words  of  our 
manuscript  authority: 

"  The  Swiss  garrison,  attacked  unexpectedly  by  the 
Piedmontese  in  the  early  morrrmg,  after  having  several 
times  endeavored  to  repel  the  assailants,  were  overborne  by 
numbers  and  took  refuge  in  the  Pauline  Fort.  There  they 
entered  into  negotiations  for  a  suspension  of  arms.  While 
these  were  going  on,  and  under  the  pretext  that  bands  of 
Pontifical  troops  had  found  a  retreat  there,  the  episcopal 
residence,  that  of  the  canons,  and  the  seminary  were  taken 
possession  of  by  the  military,  who  broke  open  gates  and 
doors  with  their  axes.  Meanwhile  the  bulk  of  the  [Pied- 
montese] army,  with  a  formidable  artillery,  which  was  even 
posted  in  the  porch  of  the  cathedral,  was  preparing  to  bom- 
bard and  assault  the  fort,  which  [by  replying  to  this  fire] 
would  have  filled  the  city  with  ruin  and  death. 

"  Thereupon  the  Cardinal-Archbishop,  with  the  gonfalo- 
niere  [mayor],  asked  to  see  the  general-in-chief,  Fanti,  who 
was  the  Piedmontese  Minister  of  War,  with  the  intention  of 
beseeching  him  not  to  carry  out  his  design.  His  pastoral 
solicitude  only  met  with  a  rude  repulse,  for  the  bombard- 
ment and  the  assault  began  with  great  vigor  at  the  expi- 
ration of  the  brief  truce.  Still,  the  Cardinal's  interposition 

*  MS.  It  was  a  misfortune  that  in  putting  down  the  insurrection  in 
Perugia  they  did  not  employ  the  French  contingent  which  then  garrisoned 
Rome,  instead  of  the  Swiss  troops  in  the  Pontifical  service.  It  was  a  part 
of  Napoleon's  policy  to  make  it  appear  that  the  Pope  employed  his  foreign 
mercenaries  to  massacre  his  Italian  subjects  ;  whereas  if  the  French  arms 
had  been  employed  no  one  would  ever  have  heard  of  the  "  Massacre  of 
Perugia." 


1  82  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

had  no  little  influence  in  preventing  the  assailants  from 
taking  offensive  measures  against  the  citizens  ;  it  prevent- 
ed also  the  effusion  of  blood,  and  helped  to  obtain  more 
favorable  conditions  for  the  besieged. 

"  Deeply  pained  as  Cardinal  Pecci  had  been  by  the 
dreadful  scenes  of  the  I4th  of  September,  he  had  another 
cause  of  anguish  on  the  morrow  in  the  unhappy  fate  of 
Don  Baldassare  Santi,  one  of  the  city  rectors.  This  ex- 
cellent man  was  falsely  accused  of  having  borne  arms  in 
repulsing  the  Piedmontese,  and  had  been  condemned  to 
death  by  a  court-martial  during  the  night.  The  Cardinal 
heard  of  the  sentence  early  in  the  morning  of  the  I5th, 
and  lost  not  an  instant  in  seeking  the  general  in  com- 
mand, De  Sonnaz,  and  asking  for  a  more  careful  and  for 
mal  investigation  of  the  charge,  for  a  revision  of  the  acts 
of  the  court-martial,  and  a  suspension  of  the  hasty  death- 
sentence.  The  accused  had  in  his  favor  a  well-known  re- 
putation for  virtue  and  other  presumptions  of  innocence. 

"  But  even  in  this  second  act  of  intervention  the  Car- 
dinal was  grieved  to  see  his  mediation  rejected  and  all 
the  efforts  of  his  fatherly  charity  fail  in  their  purpose. 

"  From  that  day  dated  for  him  the  beginning  of  a  long 
series  of  bitter  trials  and  vexations  arising  from  the  estab- 
lishment of  a  new  dictatorial  power  ruling  all  Umbria,  and 
from  the  sudden  transformation  and  overturning  of  all  ec- 
clesiastical institutions."  * 

So  the  battle  with  the  Revolution  had  begun  in  earnest. 

But  before  describing  in  other  chapters  the  chief  inci- 
dents of  this  momentous  struggle  we  may  continue  to  take 
a  rapid  survey  of  what  this  good  shepherd  did  for  his  flock. 

No  sooner  was  all  Umbria  in  possession  of  the  Pied- 
montese than  Perugia  was  filled  by  swarms  of  political 
Italian  exiles  who  had  found  a  refuge  in  Piedmont.  They 
had  long  lived  in  poverty  and  were  hungry  for  the  spoils 
of  the  Pontifical  government  and  its  adherents.  These 
men  were  all  supported  at  the  public  expense — that  is, 
l..j  expense  of  the  conquered  provinces  and  peoples.  Of 

•MS. 


DEPLORABLE  RESULTS  OF  THE  INVASION.          i&-> 

\J 

course  those  among  them  who  were  natives  of  these  pro- 
vinces had  more  than  one  sort  of  accounts  to  settle  with 
their  fellow-countrymen.  The  numbers  of  these  famished 
place-hunters  were  further  increased  by  the  members  of  the 
former  volunteer  bands  of  various  descriptions  who  had 
fought  under  Garibaldi  and  his  lieutenants,  had  followed 
the  Piedmontese  army  of  invasion,  and  had  been  "  living 
on  the  country." 

"  One  may  imagine  how  the  coming  together  in  Perugia 
of  all  these  elements  contributed  to  put  an  end  to<  good 
order,  to  ruin  public  morality,  and,  above  all,  to  destroy  all 
respect  for  religion  and  the  priesthood.  All  of  a  sudden 
they  proclaimed  all  the  subversive  laws  enacted  in  Pied- 
mont, and  with  them  was  issued,  on  October  31,  1860,  a 
commissarial  decree  imposing  on  all  Umbria  the  institu- 
tion of  civil  marriage,  with  penalties  which  affected  also 
parish  priests,  who  were  at  the  same  time  compelled  to  sur- 
render the  sacramental  registers. 

"  Then  it  happened  that,  while  abundant  favors  were 
bestowed  on  bad  and  renegade  priests,  who  had  also  come 
back  from  banishment,  the  good  priests,  on  the  contrary, 
and  such  as  had  ever  been  faithful  to  their  duty,  were  con- 
tinually threatened  and  placed  under  surveillance ;  they 
were  made  a  butt  for  slander,  for  malignant  denunciations; 
they  were  indicted,  arrested,  interned,  imprisoned,  and 
banished  the  country. 

"  Not  even  the  Cardinal-Archbishop  of  Perugia  was 
saved  from  this  species  of  persecution.  In  1862  he  was 
sued  in  the  courts  of  justice  for  having  opposed  the  estab- 
lished institutions,  because  he  had  officially  admonished 
some  of  his  priests  who  had  subscribed  an  address  to  the 
notorious  Padre  Passaglia.  But  he  not  only  came  trium- 
phantly out  of  this  suit,  but  with  a  vigorous  and  judicious 
zeal  he  defended  the  interests  of  religion,  and  gave  a  wise 
direction  to  the  conduct  of  his  clergy  amid  the  perilous  cir- 
cumstances of  the  times. 

"  A  long  series  of  episcopal  acts  and  remonstrances 
which  passed  between  the  Cardinal  and  the  functionari  s 


1  84  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

of  the  new  government  from  1860  to  1878  bear  an  illustri- 
ous testimony  to  the  truth  of  what  has  just  been  said. 
Many  of  these  acts  are  now  in  print,  and  several  of  them 
bear  the  signatures  of  all  the  bishops  of  Umbria.* 

"  Besides  this  he  displayed  the  most  efficient  zeal  in 
pleading  before  the  new  men  in  power  the  innocence  of 
his  parish  priests,  wrongfully  persecuted  and  imprisoned, 
as  well  as  to  save  from  measures  of  violence  and  instan- 
taneous expulsion  religious  communities,  among  which  were 
Dominicans,  Barnabites,  Camaldolese  Hermits,  Missionaries, 
Oratorians.  He  acted  in  the  same  way  to  save  cloistered 
communities  of  nuns  from  expulsion  and  concentration 
(in  one  house),  to  prevent  the  closing  and  profanation  of 
churches  and  the  opening  of  heterodox  temples. 

"  On  all  these  occasions  the  tone  of  his  correspondence 
with  the  civil  authorities  was  uniformly  dignified  and  mo- 
derate, while  being  also  full  of  vigor  and  convincing,  such 
as  to  compel  the  respect  of  these  officials,  and  to  prevent 
measures  of  greater  harshness  and  destructiveness  from 
being  enacted  against  his  diocese. 

"  Such  was  also  the  character  of  the  many  sensible  and 
practical  instructions  addressed  to  his  clergy  in  the  most  dif- 
ficult conjunctures,  especially  on  the  confiscation  of  the  pa- 
rochial records,  on  civil  marriage,  on  the  abolition  of  tithes, 

*  In  the  collection  entitled  "  L'Episcopnto  e  la  Rivoluzionein  Italia.  Atti 
Collettivi  dei  Vescovi  Italiani,"  Mondovi,  1867,  two  vols.,  are  printed  the 
following  acts  of  the  Umbrian  hierarchy  : 

1864.  Against  the  "Conscription  of  Ecclesiastics";  against  "the  In- 
terference of  the  Government   in   Ecclesiastical  Seminaries";  against  the 
"Decree  subjecting  the  Nomination  of  Spiritual  Administrators  and   Pa- 
rochial Vicars  to  the  royal  placet. " 

1865.  Against  the  projec'ed  law  abolishing  Religious  Orders  and  se- 
questrating ecclesiastical  property. 

In  the  "Scelta  di  Atti  Episcopal!  del  Card.  Gioacchino  Pecci  "  are 
found  nine  Collective  Acts  signed  by  him  and  other  bishops,  and  nine 
official  remonstrances  addressed  to  the  Royal  Commissioner  for  Umbria, 
to  King  Victor  Emmanuel,  to  the  President  of  the  Council  of  Ministers,  to 
the  Prefect  of  Umbria,  all  directed  to  the  defence  of  the  religious  interests 
threatened  by  the  Piedmontese  reforms  (?). 

Note  of  the  MS. 


LA  BORS  IN  BEHA LF  OF  ED  UCA  TION.  185 

on  the  suppression  of  the  ecclesiastical  courts,  on  the  na- 
tional feast,  as  well  as  on  the  enclosure  of  nuns,  on  the 
compilation  of  inventories,  and  on  the  order  of  public  wor- 
ship in  the  churches  after  the  dispersion  of  the  regulars."  * 

We  have  allowed  one  who  wras  intimately  acquainted 
with  all  the  circumstances  he  relates,  and  who  himself  took 
a  part  in  the  events  and  labors  enumerated,  to  present  the 
above  cursory  narrative.  It  is  like  a  voice,  an  authorized 
voice,  calm  and  conscientious,  from  Perugia,  sketching  out 
for  us  the  outlines  of  a  busy  life.  On  some  of  the  acts 
which  he  merely  points  to  we  shall  have  to  dwell  at  greater 
length  on  account  of  their  intrinsic  importance  and  lasting 
interest. 

But,  although  surveying  thus  rapidly  the  events  which 
followed  each  other  in  Perugia  and  Umbria  from  1846  to- 
the  invasion  of  the  Pontifical  dominions  by  Piedmont  and 
the  firm  establishment  of  the  Revolutionary  sway  in  Central 
and  Southern  Italy,  we  have  only  glanced  at  a  portion  of 
what  Cardinal  Pecci  undertook  and  accomplished  for  his 
people. 

In  speaking  of  education  we  have  only  mentioned  in 
detail  what  concerned  his  seminarians  and  his  priests.  He 
was,  from  the  beginning  of  his  episcopate,  no  less  zealous 
for  lay  instruction.  Pius  IX.,  who  appreciated  his  learn- 
ing as  well  as  his  zeal  and  fitness  to  promote  it,  appointed 
him  Apostolic  Visitor  of  the  University  of  Perugia.  With 
his  wonted  intelligence  and  zeal,  that  restless  energy  which 
pauses  not  till  it  has  overcome  every  obstacle  in  the  path 
of  a  great  design,  and  which  Americans  call  "  push,"  the 
new  Archbishop  Bishop  went  about  doing  for  the  univer- 
sity what  he  was  doing  for  his  own  seminary — he  remodel- 
led and  reorganized  it,  called  to  its  faculties  the  best  talent 
he  could  obtain,  reformed,  elevated,  completed  the  whole 
programme  of  professional  and  scientific  studies,  and  en- 
deavored in  every  way  to  make  of  this  ancient  seat  of  learn- 
ing what  it  had  been  in  mediaeval  times  when  it  rivalled 
Bologna  and  Pavia.  He  rendered  similar  services  to  the 

*MS. 


1  S3  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

Collegio  Pio  della  Sapienza,  of  which  he  was  also  appoint- 
ed Visitor,  and  to  the  College  of  Todi,  which  he  soon 
placed  on  such  a  footing  that  the  best  families  of  Umbria 
and  the  Marches  sent  their  sons  there  to  be  educated. 

Female  education  was  no  less  indebted  to  his  zeal  and 
enlightened  liberality.  While  enlarging  and  improving  his 
Seminary  and  reorganizing  the  University  of  Perugia  he 
was  also  carrying  out  another  design  for  the  better  educa- 
tion not  only  of  the  daughters  of  the  noble  and  burgess 
classes,  but  of  those  of  the  laboring  masses  as  well.  The 
Conservatorio  Pio,  which  became  under  Monsignor  Pecci  a 
great  high  school  for  female  education,  had  its  first  origin 
in  1816,  when,  at  the  petition  of  the  then  Bishop  of  Peru- 
gia and  the  municipal  authorities,  Pius  VII.  appropriated 
to  the  establishment  of  an  elementary  free  school  for  girls, 
as  well  as  an  academy  for  the  daughters  of  the  better 
classes,  the  patrimony  of  two  monasteries  suppressed  by 
the  former  French  government  in  Italy.  The  institution 
was  placed  by  the  Pope  under  the  care  of  a  board  of  four 
directors. 

The  free  day-school  for  little  girls  was  opened  in  1819; 
the  want  of  necessary  means  prevented  the  establishment 
of  the  superior  school  till  1846,  when  Monsignor  Pecci  was 
appointed  Archbishop  of  Perugia.  He,  with  his  wonted 
determination,  resolved  that  the  original  design  should  be 
carried  out.  Writing  to  King  Victor  Emmanuel  in  Novem- 
ber, 1861,  when  the  government  had  laid  its  hand  on  the 
beautiful  and  flourishing  institution,  Cardinal  Pecci  relates 
how  it  had  its  second  birth  : 

"  Poverty,  the  want  of  a  proper  site,  and  other  obsta- 
cles had  for  a  long  time  frustrated  the  desires  of  the  public, 
when  the  Holy  See  sent  me  to  Perugia.  The  whole  city 
knows  how,  within  the  space  of  a  few  months,  we  succeed- 
ed in  making  a  beginning,  having  obtained  perfect  unity  of 
purpose  and  brushed  aside  all  delays.  We  saw  in  a  short 
time  a  vast  and  remarkable  edifice  built  up  from  the  foun- 
dations in  the  most  lovely  and  happy  site,  and  of  a  style  and 
beauty  of  form  that  can  compare  well  with  any  similar  pro- 


ESTABLISHING  SCHOOLS  AND  PROTECTORATES,     I  87 

vincial  establishment.  Assisted  by  the  unanimous  and  un- 
wearied co-operation  of  the  four  directors,  and  by  the  en- 
couragement given  by  the  reigning  Pontiff  (who  took  it 
under  his  special  protection),  I  had  the  satisfaction,  in 
1857,  to  see  the  wishes  of  the  public  realized,  and  to  give 
to  the  country  this  new  school,  so  long  desired  and  so  use 
ful.  Some  Sisters  of  the  Sacred  Heart  were  called  to  take 
charge  of  the  interior  discipline  and  the  instruction  of  the 
pupils."  The  Cardinal  placed  the  house  under  the  patron- 
.age  of  St.  Ann,  doubtless  in  remembrance  of  his  mother. 
The  Ladies  of  the  Sacred  Heart  are  obliged  by  their  rules 
to  have  a  poor  school  attached  to  their  establishments 
whenever  that  is  practicable.  Their  wishes  were  fulfilled 
here,  for  the  Cardinal  had  opened  a  large  and  spacious  day- 
school  for  little  girls  of  the  laboring  classes,  so  that  their 
devoted  mistresses  could  satisfy  all  the  yearnings  of  their 
hearts  in  rearing  to  all  goodness  and  useful  knowledge  the 
children  of  every  class  in  the  city. 

But  the  equally  devoted  Pastor  would  have  every  child 
of  his  flock  receive  the  boon  of  a  truly  Christian  education. 
The  daughters  of  the  poor  in  every  land  are  exposed  to 
peculiar  dangers ;  and  Cardinal  Pecci  knew  well  that  in 
the  Italy  of  his  day  every  one  of  the  little  girls  who  went 
forth  daily,  in  town  and  country,  from  the  poor  man's 
hovel,  needed  special  care  and  special  grace  to  become  in 
due  time  a  true  Christian  woman,  the  mother  of  true  Chris- 
tian men.  Such  he  would  have  all  these  poor  little  ones 
of  his  flock.  For  their  education  and  reception  he  founded 
the  Conservatorio  Graziani,  a  protectory  school  worthy  of 
any  city.  He  next  founded  a  Magdalen  Asylum,  a  no  less 
noble  charity.  Both  of  these  houses  he  placed  under  the 
Belgian  Sisters  of  Providence,  whom  he  sent  for  to  Cham- 
pion, in  the  province  of  Namur.  Other  protectory  schools 
already  in  existence  received  a  new  impulse  and  arose  to 
new  life  under  the  touch  of  his  pastoral  zeal.  He  had  the 
gift  of  making  every  establishment  he  took  in  hand  a 
financial  as  well  as  an  educational  success. 

The   same  all-embracing  charity  which    protected    the 


1 88  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

innocent  and  lifted  up  the  fallen  soon  provided  the  Anti- 
nori  Foundling  Asylum,  which  he  placed  under  the  care  of 
the  Sisterhood  of  the  Stigmata  of  St.  Francis,  as  well  as 
the  Donnini  Hospice  for  incurable  and  chronic  diseases. 

He  did  not  forget  night-schools  for  children  who  had 
to  work  all  day,  especially  for  young  artisans.  He  would 
have  these  receive  all  the  instruction  necessary  to  become 
really  superior  in  their  respective  crafts. 

We  have  already  mentioned  the  pleasure  gardens  of 
St.  Philip  Neri,  under  the  care  of  the  Dratorians,  who  had 
also  the  co-operation  of  the  young  clergy.  There,  on  Sun- 
days and  holydays,  boys  and  youths  found  delightful  re- 
creation, facilities  for  attending  divine  worship,  Christian 
instruction,  safe  and  agreeable  companionship,  and  protec- 
tion from  the  many  snares  laid  in  the  world  outside  for 
unsuspecting  youth. 

So  that  no  sex  or  age  or  class,  or  pressing  need  of 
mind,  of  heart,  of  soul  or  body,  was  left  uncared  for,  un- 
provided for  by  this  good  shepherd  of  Christ's  flock. 

No,  not  even  the  industrial  and  commercial  wants  of 
the  struggling,  laborious,  and  thrifty  classes.  Cardinal 
Pecci  founded,  revived,  improved,  or  developed  the  Monti 
di  Pictb,  the  poor  man's  blessed  resource  in  the  Catholic 
Italy  that  was,  where  for  the  money  loaned  to  those  who- 
wished  to  rise  from  poverty  to  independence,  or  to  increase 
their  thrift,  no  interest,  or  nothing  approaching  to  modern 
interest  for  money,  was  ever  asked. 

It  was  he  who  inspired  the  Perugians  to  found  their 
savings-bank,  furnishing  himself  a  good  part  of  the  capi- 
tal. 

One  of  the  chief  duties  of  a  bishop  is  to  visit  regularly, 
at  brief  intervals,  every  portion  of  his  diocese,  examining 
personally  everything  that  pertains  to  the  interests  of  re- 
ligion, the  instruction  of  the  flock,  the  condition  of  public 
worship,  the  state  of  public  morality,  and  the  prosperity 
of  parochial  institutions  of  every  kind.  The  bishop  goes- 
as  the  chief  pastor,  to  see  to  it  that  his  subordinates  per- 
form their  duty,  to  listen  to  the  complaints  of  the  people,. 


THE  CARDINAL'S  PASTORAL   VISITATIONS.  189 

to  correct  abuses,  reprove  indiscipline,  and  uproot  all  scan- 
dals. It  is  an  arduous  task,  but  one  most  necessary  to  be 
undertaken  and  performed  in  the  right  spirit. 

Monsignor  Pecci  was  too  anxious  to  ascertain  for  himself 
what  was  to  be  done  for  the  good  of  souls,  and  the  ad- 
vancement of  religion  in  every  corner  of  his  diocese,  not 
to  set  about  visiting  it  soon  after  taking  possession  of  his 
see.  And  he  renewed  these  visits  with  the  most  scrupu- 
lous punctuality  every  fourth  year  during  his  long  stay  in 
Perugia.  Nor  was  liis  visitation  a  hasty,  perfunctory,  and 
superficial  one.  It  was  the  work  of  a  man  who  believed, 
and  acted  on  the  belief,  that  he  had  to  answer  on  his  own 
soul  for  the  soul  of  every  single  human  creature  confided 
to  his  care. 

On  thus  visiting  in  succession  each  parish  a  bishop 
ascertains  whether  the  word  of  God  is  duly  explained  to 
the  people  from  the  pulpit,  or  whether  their  children  are 
carefully  instructed  in  the  Christian  doctrine.  It  is  certain 
that  Monsignor  Pecci  took  every  precaution  to  have  these 
indispensable  duties  of  the  pastorate  performed  by  his 
priests. 

We  have  omitted  to  mention  one  of  his  own  favorite 
and  beneficent  reforms. 

He  had  in  his  diocese  an  orphanage  for  boys  which 
sadly  needed  improvement.  He  at  once  resolved,  while 
making  it  an  asylum  for  these  waifs  of  his  flock,  to  make 
of  it  an  industrial  school  as  well  as  a  loved  home  for  these 
little  ones.  He  had  seen,  during  his  stay  in  Belgium,  the 
Brothers  of  Mercy  at  work  and  effecting  some  such  won- 
ders as  the  Irish  Christian  Brothers  at  the  orphanage  of 
Glasnevin,  near  Dublin,  and  at  the  great  industrial  school 
of  Artane.  A  colony  of  the  Brothers  of  Mercy  was,  there- 
fore, called  from  Belgium  and  placed  in  charge  of  the  or- 
phanage of  Perugia,  which  soon  became  a  beehive  filled 
with  happy  and  healthful  toilers. 

The  same  wise  and  provident  methods  were  adopted 
for  these  boys  which  worked  so  admirably  in  the  case  of 
the  orphan  girls  of  the  Graziani  Protectorate  ;  it  was  the 


I  90  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

Cardinal's  aim  to  make  of  these  orphans  of  both  sc.\ 
when  they  had  to  leave  their  temporary  homes,  children  so 
well  reared  and  grounded  in  Christian  principle  that  they 
should  remain  ever  after  true  to  God,  and  children  so  in- 
dustriously trained  that  they  were  prepared  to  be  self- 
supporting  and  most  useful  members  of  society. 

For  both  the  one  institution  and  the  other,  when  they 
sent  forth  their  charges  to  begin  life  in  earnest,  other  pious 
organizations  were  ready  to  give  a  helping  hand  and  find 
the  children  safe  and  lucrative  employment. 

We  have  seen  how  zealous  he  was  to  build  up  in  men's 
souls  the  spiritual  temples  of  the  Most  High  God ;  he  was 
no  less  zealous  and  liberal  in  building,  repairing,  beautify- 
ing the  material  house  of  God. 

Of  course,  in  a  city  where  the  traditions  of  high  art  are 
so  constantly  cherished  as  in  the  capital  of  Umbria,  the 
cathedral  church,  the  creation  of  the  mediaeval  city  in  the 
days  when  liberty  and  religion  walked  hand-in-hand,  was  the 
object  of  the  Archbishop's  loving  care.  The  Perugians  had 
been  so  proud  of  the  beautiful  structure,  their  Duomo,  their 
house  of  God  !  The  misfortunes  of  more  than  half  a  cen- 
tury had  left  their  mark  on  both  interior  and  exterior; 
the  wanton  vandalism  of  impiety  and  the  forced  neglect  of 
an  impoverished  people  left  not  a  little  to  be  done.  When 
Archbishop  Pecci  had  attended  to  the  most  pressing  needs 
of  his  diocese,  he  ordered,  in  1849,  the  laying  of  a  new  mar- 
ble pavement  in  the  Duomo  ;  and  later,  when  he  felt  sure 
that  he  had  conscientiously  provided  for  the  other  wants 
of  his  people,  he  began  to  restore  now  one  part  of  the 
cathedral,  and  now  another,  spending  on  these  repairs  some 
twenty  thousand  crowns.  One  of  his  last  cares  in  this 
respect,  before  leaving  Perugia  for  ever,  was  to  have  the 
chapel  of  Sant'  Onofrio  adorned  with  frescoes. 

In  an  age,  too,  when  conspicuous  writers  both  in  France 
and  Germany  labored  to  destroy  in  the  Christian  mind  all 
belief  in  the  supernatural  by  making  of  Christ  Himself  a 
mere  man,  Monsignor  Pecci  encouraged  among  his  people 
the  most  fervent  devotion  to  her  whom  they  and  their 


LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

fathers  before  them  had  reverenced  as  the  Mother  of  God. 
He  built,  at  the  very  gates  of  Perugia,  the  church  of  Our 
Lady  of  Mercy,*  a  favorite  resort  of  pilgrims  in  these  times 
of  doubt  and  dread.  He  began  with  what  was  most  need- 
ful, by  building  churches  where  there  were  none,  and  sup- 
plying them  with  zealous  priests.  In  doing  the  work  of 
God  he  always  thought  and  said  that  the  workman  should 
trust  in  a  great  measure  to  God  for  the  means.  His  trust 
'never  failed  to  be  rewarded.  During  his  administration  no 
less  than  thirty-six  church  edifices  were  built  from  the 
foundations,  and  six  already  in  course  of  construction  were 
completed.  Those  enlarged,  repaired,  and  beautified  are 
in  far  greater  number.  "  The  example  of  the  Archbishop's 
generosity,"  says  our  manuscript  guide,  "stimulated  the 
faithful  to  imitate  him  in  the  measure  of  their  own  ability. 
Thus  for  the  church  of  San  Martino  in  Campo  more  than 
twelve  thousand  crowns  were  spent  ;  for  the  great  church 
of  Castiglione  del  Lago  more  than  twenty-five  thousand ;f 
and  so  on  for  many  others  which  it  were  too  long  to  men- 
tion here,  but  which  will  be  mentioned  by  the  chroniclers 
of  that  fortunate  period  during  which  Perugia  had  for  pas 
tor  and  father  Joachim  Pecci." 

Elsewhere  we  have  mentioned  with  what  perfect  order, 
piety,  and  splendor  divine  worship  was  celebrated  there,  so 
that  strangers  who  came  to  admire  in  Perugia  the  remains 

*  Note  in  the  MS.  "  To  him  it  is  due  that  we  see  near  Perugia  the 
sanctuary  of  Ponte  delta  Pietra  in  honor  of  Our  Lady  of  Mercy.  Her  pic- 
ture had  long  hung  in  a  poor  niche  near  a  torrent,  and  had  moved  the 
popular  veneration  by  several  extraordinary  favors  bestowed  on  poor  peo- 
ple in  their  need  through  the  intercession  of  Christ's  Blessed  Mother. 
The  pious  generosity  of  the  faithful  induced  the  bishop  to  begin  the  pre- 
sent beautiful  temple,  which  became  the  centre  of  a  new  parish."  This 
recalls  the  piety  shown  by  Joachim  Pecci  at  Carpineto  toward  another 
sanctuary  of  the  Madonna. 

f  When  the  reader,  crossing  the  Vale  of  Chiana  from  below  Cortona 
to  Chiusi,  comes  upon  the  borders  of  Lake  Thrasymene,  he  will  see,  in 
autumn,  from  amid  the  brown  foliage  of  the  groves  of  oak,  the  snow- 
white  cupola  and  classic  outlines  of  the  Duomo  of  Castiglione  projected, 
like  a  fairy  vision,  on  the  intensely  blue  waters  of  the  lake.  This  is  the 
beautiful  church  mentioned  above. 


CARDINAL  PECCl'S  PRACTICAL  JUDGMENT.         193 

of  the  mediaeval  architecture  and  the  masterpieces  of  paint- 
ing which  the  school  of  Umbria  had  accumulated  there, 
remained  to  witness  the  "  beauty  of  holiness"  in  the  ser- 
vice of  the  altar.  Cardinal  Pecci  took  especial  pains  to 
regulate  and  cultivate  the  sacred  music  which  Pergolese 
had  made  so  entrancing,  as  well  as  the  sublime  Gregorian 
chant,  so  well  adapted  to  Catholic  worship  and  congrega- 
tional singing.  He  loved  all  the  arts,  and,  born  in  the 
sanctuary  as  they  were,  he  made  them  minister  to  the 
grandeur  and  glory  of  the  God  of  the  Temple. 

What  he  did  for  his  cathedral  he  also  did  for  all  the 
churches  of  his  diocese.  He  insisted  that  everything  in 
the  celebration  of  the  divine  office  should  be  worthy  of 
God,  in  harmony  with  the  reality  of  Catholic  belief,  and 
such  as  to  instruct,  strengthen,  and  edify  his  people. 

Intensely  devoted  as  he  was  to  all  that  could  advance 
the  interests  of  his  people,  temporal  as  well  as  spiritual,  he 
wished  that  every  institution  of  beneficence,  like  every  edu- 
cational establishment,  should  yield  to  the  utmost  the  ad- 
vantages for  which  they  had  been  founded.  Not  the  least 
of  his  many  great  qualities  was  his  clear  and  practical  judg- 
ment in  all  business  matters.  Where  the  most  experienced 
sometimes  were  puzzled  to  find  their  way  out  of  financial 
difficulties,  his  instinct  enabled  him  to  perceive  at  once  a 
solution. 

This  was  very  apparent  on  many  important  occasions. 
"  He  was  well  aware  that  the  great  hospital  of  Santa 
Maria  della  Misericordia  owed  its  birth  to  the  pastoral  zeal 
of  the  Bulgarian  Bishop  Montemelini,  who  had  given  it 
canonical  existence  by  his  decree  of  1305,  and  built  it  with 
the  co-operation  of  pious  citizens  of  Perugia,  lay  as  well  as 
clerical.  Cardinal  Pecci  thought  it  his  duty  to  offer  this 
institution  his  help,  reaffirming  thereby  the  right  of  the 
bishop  to  interfere  in  the  good  government  of  an  establish- 
ment of  public  charity  of  such  importance.  In  this  way, 
and  by  employing  the  most  discreet  prudence,  he  revived 
the  visiting  authority  of  the  bishop  with  regard  to  several 
confraternities  which  believed  themselves  exempt  from  all 


194  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

ordinary  episcopal  superintendence.  This  exemption  was 
declared  in  every  way  unfounded  by  a  decree  of  the  Sa- 
cred Congregation  of  the  Council  on  August  26,  1854.  He 
thereupon  wisely  established  the  '  Tutelary  Congregation  of 
Holy  Places,'  composed  of  the  ablest  and  most  experienced 
clergymen  and  laymen,  who  rendered  him  the  greatest  as- 
sistance in  governing  and  protecting  the  interests  of  all 
pious  foundations  and  establishments.  He  issued  rules  for 
keeping  their  accounts,  and  a  general  law  regulating  all 
pious  associations  and  confraternities  in  his  diocese.  This 
reform  did  so  much  good  that  the  bishops  of  even  remote 
parts  of  Italy  hastened  to  imitate  it  in  their  respective 
dioceses."  * 

Thus  labored  he  while  the  field  he  cultivated  was  still 
under  his  control.  But  the  enemy  was  nigh  and  watchful ; 
and  the  harvest  so  lovingly  and  hopefully  prepared  was 
destined  to  be  trodden  under  foot  and  ravaged  by  the 
flame  of  hostile  fires. 

Assuredly,  in  placing  Joachim  Pecci  in  the  see  of  Pe- 
rugia, Gregory  XVI.  felt  sure  that  he  was  not  hiding  this 
great  light  beneath  a  bushel. 


CHAPTER  XIV. 

IN  THE   BATTLE.  —  I.    HE  DEFENDS    THE    TEMPORAL    SOVE 
REIGNTY   OF  THE   HOLY   SEE. 


episcopate  of  Archbishop  Pecci  in  Perugia,  coin- 
ciding  as  it  did  with  the  long  reign  of  Pius  IX.,  fell 
assuredly  upon  evil  days.  The  greatest  calamities  which  be- 
fell Italy  from  1846  to  1878  were  not,  perhaps,  the  assaults 
delivered  in  such  quick  succession  against  the  Temporal 
Power  of  the  Papacy,  and  battering  it  down  in  the  end,  as 
the  anti-Christian  and  anti-social  principles  and  practices  pro- 
pagated in  Italy  by  the  triumphant  Revolution.  Monsignor 
Pecci  was  too  well  acquainted  with  the  hostile  intentions  of 
some  of  the  great  European  Powers,  with  the  indifference 
of  others,  and  the  helplessness  or  selfishness  of  the  so-called 
Catholic  governments,  not  to  foresee,  from  the  day  Louis 
Philippe  was  dethroned  and  Pius  IX.  besieged  in  the  Quiri- 
nal,  that  the  Papacy  could  expect  no  effective  support  for 
the  preservation  of  its  sacred  and  time-honored  rights  from 
what  was,  in  1848,  only  the  decayed  and  tottering  frame- 
work of  the  Christendom  built  up  by  the  Middle  Ages. 

It  did  not  escape  the  notice  of  a  statesman  so  well  con- 
versant with  the  political  intrigues  of  the  day  that  English 
public  opinion,  as  indicated  or  influenced  by  the  Times,  the 
Daily  News,  and  the  Standard,  was  bitterly  hostile  to  the 
Pope  and  clamorous  for  the  downfall  of  his  principality, 
while  the  leaders  of  the  two  great  political  parties* 
Palmerston  and  Gladstone  especially  —  conspired  actively 
and  openly  with  Piedmont  for  the  destruction  of  the  ex- 
isting governments  in  the  Italian  Peninsula,  the  extinction 
of  the  Temporal  Power,  and  the  unification  of  Italy  under 

*  Disraeli's  sentiments  can  be  gathered  from  his  "  Lothair,"  in  which 
the  heroes  and  heroine  are  the  embodiment  of  Italian  anti-papal  fanaticism. 

'95 


1 96  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

the  sceptre  of  the  house  of  Savoy.  The  unprincipled  and 
shallow  adventurer  who  succeeded  in  1848-49  in  confiscating 
to  his  own  profit  the  French  liberties  he  had  sworn  to  pro- 
tect, was,  at  bottom,  like  Carlo  Alberto  and  his  son,  Victor 
Emmanuel,  only  the  tool — a  half-unwilling  tool,  it  may  be 
— of  the  revolutionary  societies  to  which  he  had  been  early 
affiliated.  Whether  knowingly  or  unwittingly,  he  in  fact 
only  interfered  in  Italian  affairs  to  betray  the  interests  of 
the  Papacy,  to  help  despoil  the  Pope  of  his  provinces,  one 
after  the  other,  and  then  to  hand  over  Rome  and  its  Pon- 
tiff to  Piedmont,  just  as  the  Fates  or  the  Furies  who  pur- 
sued him  handed  him  and  his  empire  over  to  the  tender 
mercies  of  Prince  Bismarck. 

Monsignor  Pecci  was  not  blind  to  the  policy  which 
dynastic  ambition  or  the  overmastering  revolutionary  con- 
spirators, marshalled  under  Cavour,  dictated  to  the  Savoy 
princes.  Still  less  blind  was  he  to  the  anti-Christian  char- 
acter of  the  now  secret,  now  open  agencies  which  the  Pied- 
montese  leaders  employed  to  compass  their  ends.  Politi- 
cal and  social  Italy  was,  like  the  wooden  house,  eaten 
through  and  through  by  the  terrible  termites  of  Mazzini 
and  Garibaldi,  and  ready  to  collapse,  one  part  after  the 
other,  without  any  serious  resistance. 

The  Archbishop  of  Perugia,  foreseeing  the  storm  and 
calculating  correctly  its  destructive  effects,  omitted  no  pre- 
caution, no  effort,  no  labor  to  preserve  the  minds  and  hearts 
of  his  people  against  the  evil  influences  of  the  spirit  which 
ruled  that  storm.  It  may  be  instructive,  at  this  stage  of 
our  narrative,  to  show  how  prophetic  was  the  mind  which 
conceived  and  produced  the  various  pastoral  letters  pub- 
lished by  him  as  Archbishop  of  Perugia.  They  forcibly 
remind  one  of  the  trumpet-toned  instructions  delivered, 
during  a  cyclone  at  sea,  by  the  watchful  captain  of  a  vessel 
to  crew  and  passengers.  Every  note  of  warning  and  com- 
mand tells  of  the  progress  of  the  tempest,  the  fury  of  the 
elemental  war,  and  the  courage  or  dismay  of  the  ship's 
Company. 

One  of  the  means  employed  by  the  revolutionary  so- 


WORKINGS  OF  THE  RE  VOL  UTIONAR  Y  SOCIE  TIES.     \  9  7 

cieties,  both  in  France  and  in  Italy,  to  attract  the  curious 
and  unwary  to  their  secret  meetings,  was  magnetism,  or 
"  spiritualism,"  with  its  exciting  revelations.  In  Great 
Britain  and  the  United  States  the  main  attraction  of  these 
spiritualistic  or  mesmeristic  gatherings  was  curiosity.  Po- 
litics had  nothing  to  do  with  them.  Yet  we  know  what 
mischief  all  this  charlatanism  and  imposture  did  to  reli- 
gion and  morality. 

In  France  and  Italy,  where  faith  undermined  was  re- 
placed by  superstition  and  a  morbid  craving  for  preterna- 
tural knowledge,  there  was  in  these  meetings  not  only  the 
moral  danger  to  the  conscience,  but  the  revolutionary  pas- 
sions and  the  hatred  of  the  existing  religious  belief,  which 
were  fostered  sedulously  by  the  spirit  of  the  place.  Cardi- 
nal Pecci,  in  1857,  issued  a  pastoral  instruction  on  "The 
Abuses  of  Magnetism."  He  avoided  touching  on  the  po- 
litical aspects  of  the  question,  as  his  title  indicates.  He 
was  also  too  well  read  in  all  that  pertains  to  natural  science 
to  deny  the  existence  of  natural  magnetic  forces,  of  which 
observation  has  only  revealed  very  limited  effects.  But 
religion  and  morality  must  condemn  the  use  made  of  these 
mysterious  agencies  by  unprincipled,  irreligious,  and  in- 
terested persons. 

Then,  while  in  1859-60  Cavour,  following  up  the  effect 
produced  on  the  unheroic  spirit  of  the  French  emperor 
by  the  Orsini  bombs,  got  him  to  cross  the  Alps,  fight  the 
Austrians,  hold  up  for  a  moment  to  the  sceptic  Neo- 
Guelphs  the  mirage-vision  of  an  Italy  confederated  under 
the  Papacy,  the  Frenchman,  half-crazed  by  his  own  per- 
sonal dangers  at  Magenta  and  the  fearful  havoc  of  Sol- 
ferino,  withdrew  beyond  the  Alps,  after  allowing  his  un- 
warlike  namesake  and  cousin  to  invade  and  dismember  the 
Papal  dominions  and  create  insurrections  in  the  adjoining 
States. 

It  was  the  second  violation  by  France  and  the  Bona- 
partes — in  alliance,  this  time,  with  Piedmont  and  the  Occult 
Force — of  that  peaceful  and  unarmed  principality  which 
Charlemagne  had  bestowed  on  him  whom  all  in  the  ninth 


1 98  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

century,  even  the  Greeks,  called  the  Vicar  of  Christ,  the 
Teacher,  Guide,  and  Parent  of  all  Christians.  As  around  the 
Church  the  formative  force,  the  glorious  Christendom  of 
our  fathers  arose,  they  confirmed  and  secured  to  the  Popes 
this  sovereignty,  to  make  them  independent  of  any  one 
power  or  nation  in  the  exercise  of  their  great  spiritual 
office  of  Universal  Pastors.  Their  freedom  in  this  was 
the  inalienable  right  of  all  Christian  nations  and  peoples. 

The  first  Napoleon  seized  upon  Pius  VII.  and  carried 
him  off  to  Fontainebleau,  while  declaring  his  States  an  in- 
tegral part  of  the  first  "  Kingdom  of  Italy."  But  this  King- 
dom of  Italy,  with  the  first  Napoleonic  empire  and  its  em- 
peror, soon  vanished  like  the  splendid  show  of  a  dissolving 
view.  The  third  Napoleon,  ere  he  died  in  exile  like  his 
uncle,  and  under  the  British  flag,  saw  the  ninth  Pius,  whom 
he  had  betrayed  into  the  power  of  the  Revolution,  stripped 
of  all  his  dominions  and  left  only  a  shadow  of  freedom 
with  the  mockery  of  a  nominal  sovereignty  in  the  Vatican. 
His  empire,  too,  had  gone  down,  suddenly,  frightfully,  like 
one  of  those  seemingly  invincible  armed  vessels  devised  by 
modern  science,  which  the  first  blast  of  the  tempest  and 
the  first  assault  of  the  waves  overwhelm,  burying  the  mighty 
ship  and  her  crew  in  the  depths  of  ocean. 

The  second  Kingdom  of  Italy  has  its  throne  in  the  Quiri- 
nal ;  for  how  long? 

Just  as  Cavour  and  Napoleon  III.  were  planning  their 
Italian  campaign,  and  while  Garibaldi  was  summoned  to 
Turin  to  co-operate  against  the  Austrians,  Cardinal  Pecci 
wrote  his  pastoral  "  On  the  Temporal  Dominion  of  the 
Popes."  One  would  almost  think,  on  reading  over  this 
pastoral  letter  now  at  the  beginning  of  1887,  that  he  who 
wrote  it  must  have  been  inspired  by  Him  to  whom  there 
is  neither  past  nor  future,  but  one  ever-present  knowledge 
of  all  human  events ;  so  accurately  are  described  as  mere 
possibilities  then,  the  realities  of  which  Pius  IX.  and  his 
successor  had  to  endure — the  tyranny  at  the  hands  of  the 
Piedmontese  usurpation  and  the  domination  of  the  Italian 
Radicals.  Our  readers  will  find  even  in  the  brief  extracts 


"  THE  TEMPORAL  DOMINION  OF  THE  POPES."      199 

we  here  submit  a  clear  and  luminous  explanation  of  the 
present  "  Roman  Question,"  of  the  free  exercise  of  the 
spiritual  jurisdiction  of  the  Holy  See  as  a  thing,  under  pre- 
sent circumstances,  inseparable  from  the  Pope's  absolute 
independence  in  temporals  of  any  sovereign  power  what- 
ever. 

The  document  is  dated  February  12,  1860.  It  was  writ- 
ten, consequently,  before  Garibaldi's  expedition  to  Sicily 
and  the  Piedmontese  invasion  of  the  Marches  and  Umbria. 
After  reciting  the  ancient  errors,  dating  from  the  third  cen- 
tury of  our  era  down  to  the  fifteenth,  which  denied  the 
right  of  the  Church  or  of  ecclesiastical  persons  to  possess 
property  or  exercise  temporal  power  of  any  kind,  Cardinal 
Pecci,  in  view  of  the  anti-Catholic  and  revolutionary  pro- 
paganda then  so  active  in  Italy,  declares  it  his  bounden 
duty  to  instruct  his  people  "  on  the  temporal  dominion  of 
the  Holy  See." 

"  To  discharge  before  God  the  strict  obligation  I  have 
as  a  bishop  to  watch  over  the  dangers  which  threaten  the 
souls  of  his  flock,  and  not  to  have  one  day  to  reproach  my 
conscience  with  the  terrible  Woe  is  me,  because  I  have  held 
my  peace,  I  address  myself  to  you,  O  my  beloved  people, 
with  all  the  warmth  of  my  heart,  all  the  zeal  of  my  soul, 
begging  you,  amid  the  present  dreadful  upsetting  of  all 
notions,  the  present  fearful  and  fateful  circumstances,  to 
hear  the  voice  of  your  pastor  with  your  wonted  docility, 
inspired  as  it  is  solely  by  that  charity  which  compels  him 
to  prefer  the  salvation  of  your  souls  to  all  human  conside- 
rations. 

"  It  is  all  the  more  needful  that  I  should  do  so  that,  on 
the  one  hand,  people  are  more  earnest  in  their  endeavors 
to  persuade  you  that  this  '  temporal  dominion  '  has  no- 
thing whatever  to  do  with  the  real  interests  of  Catholicism ; 
and  that,  on  the  other,  there  are  very  many  persons  who, 
either  on  account  of  their  simplicity  of  character,  or  their 
lack  of  knowledge,  or  their  weakness  of  intellect,  do  not 
even  suspect  the  existence  of  the  wicked  purpose  which  is 
concealed  from  their  eyes  with  such  a  criminal  skilfulness. 


2OO  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

'  There  is  no  question  here  of  religion,'  they  say ;  '  we  want 
religion  to  be  respected.  But  the  Pope  must  be  satisfied 
with  the  spiritual  government  of  souls ;  he  has  no  need  of 
a  temporal  sovereignty.  Temporal  power  turns  away  the 
mind  to  worldly  cares;  it  is  injurious  to  the  Church,  op- 
posed to  the  Gospel,  and  unlawful  ' — with  many  other  silly 
assertions  of  this  kind,  of  which  it  is  hard  to  say  whether 
they  are  more  insulting  than  hypocritical." 

Such  is  the  opening  of  this  address.  The  Catholic  world 
has  long  known  the  admirable  publications  of  Bishop  Du- 
panloup  on  the  Roman  question  and  the  temporalities  of 
the  Holy  See.  The  French  language  and  the  perfect  lite- 
rary forms  of  modern  French  controversial  composition, 
which  the  great  Orleans  prelate  used  to  such  good  pur- 
pose, have  familiarized  us  all  with  his  polemical  writings. 
But  Cardinal  Pecci's  pastorals,  written  in  his  native  Italian, 
were  but  little  known  outside  of  the  Peninsula.  This  was 
much  to  be  regretted.  For  they  are  scarcely  less  racy  and 
vigorous  in  style  than  those  of  the  French  apologist  of 
the  Papacy,  and  they  are  more  solid  in  their  doctrine. 

"  Let  us  omit  to  dwell,"  the  Cardinal  continues,  "  on 
the  new  ground  on  which  it  is  proposed  to  strip  every  pro- 
prietor of  all  that  he  does  not  strictly  need  for  his  suste- 
nance. What  a  farce  it  would  be  to  say  to  him  that  by  so 
doing  the  despoilers  were  relieving  him  of  the  trouble  of 
taking  care  of  his  superfluous  goods !  Let  us  say  nothing 
of  the  august  right,  consecrated  by  eleven  centuries  of  pos- 
session, of  the  most  ancient  and  venerated  of  European 
monarchies :  if  such  rights  are  not  sufficient  to  insure  re- 
spect, then  there  is  no  kingdom,  no  empire  in  Europe 
which  may  not  be  destroyed. 

"  Let  us  say  nothing  of  the  open  robbery  of  these  pos- 
sessions which  the  piety  of  the  faithful  and  of  sovereigns 
bestowed  on  the  Roman  Pontiff  and  on  the  Catholic  body; 
let  us  pass  by  in  silence  the  victory  of  the  Revolution  over 
the  most  sacred  and  venerable  authority  which  was  the 
corner-stone  of  European  society,  as  well  as  the  sad  state 
of  abasement  to  which  it  is  proposed  to  reduce  the  Com- 


AN  ADMIRABLE  EXPOSITION.  2OI 

mon  Father  of  the  faithful,  the  Supreme  Pontiff  of  the 
Catholic  Church. 

"  Let  us  pass  over  in  silence  the  nefarious  work  of  de- 
stroying that  temporal  principality  which  has  been  at  all 
times  the  august  school  of  the  sciences  and  fine  arts,  the 
well-spring  of  civilization  and  wisdom  for  all  nations,  the 
glory  of  Italy  by  that  moral  primacy  which  it  secures  to 
her,  and  which  is  all  the  more  noble  as  spirit  is  superior  to 
matter ;  this  bulwark  which  protected  Europe  from  the 
waves  of  Eastern  barbarism ;  this  power  which,  by  restor- 
ing the  ruins  of  ancient  greatness,  founded  the  Christian 
Rome ;  this  throne  before  which  the  most  powerful  mon- 
archs  have  bent  low  their  heads  in  reverent  obeisance,  to 
which  from  all  the  courts  of  Europe,  and  from  Japan  at  the 
extremity  of  the  East,  have  come  solemn  embassies  prof- 
fering homage  and  respect. 

"  Let  us,  I  say,  omit  all  that,  and  all  else  that  might 
be  said  of  a  design  which  contemplates  the  committing 
of  an  accumulation  of  crimes ;  let  us  limit  ourselves  to 
the  consideration  of  the  close  connection  which  the  spolia- 
tion of  the  Papal  temporal  power  has  with  the  interests 
of  Catholic  doctrine,  with  the  mischievous  results  sure  to 
follow  for  the  Catholic  religion." 

There  are  no  captious  statements,  no  suppression  of 
the  truth,  no  exaggeration  of  the  rights  and  claims  of  the 
Papacy. 

"  It  is  false,"  the  Cardinal  says  with  a  manly  indigna- 
tion, "  that  any  Catholic  holds  the  temporal  dominion  to 
be  a  dogma  of  his  faith ;  such  an  assertion  can  only  have 
come  from  the  ignorance  or  the  wickedness  of  the  enemies 
of  the  Church.  But  it  is  most  true,  and  must  be  evident 
to  any  intelligent  mind,  that  there  is  a  very  close  connec- 
tion between  this  temporal  power  and  the  spiritual  pri- 
macy, whether  we  consider  the  latter  in  the  very  concep- 
tion of  its  nature  or  in  its  necessary  exercise." 

Then  follows  a  clear  and  rapid  exposition  of  the  Ca- 
tholic doctrine  on  the  divine  institution  of  the  Supreme 
Pastorate  in  the  Church,  and  of  the  end  for  which  this 


2O2  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

supreme  teaching  and  governing  power  in  spirituals  was 
made  a  concrete,  living,  and  immortal  organism  on  earth. 

This  "  divine  principle  of  holiness  and  truth,"  incarnate 
in  a  manner  in  the  Roman  Pontiff,  cannot  be  the  subject 
of  any  human  power.  For  it  is  this  living,  ruling  principle 
which  "  maintains  in  their  unity  and  integrity  the  Church 
and  religion.  Besides,  can  it  be  intelligible  that  the  living 
interpreter  of  the  divine  law  and  will  should  be  placed 
under  the  jurisdiction  of  the  civil  authority,  which  itself 
derives  all  its  own  strength  and  authority  from  the  same 
divine  will  and  law  ?  .  .  ." 

"  The  Church  is  the  Kingdom  of  Christ ;  .  .  .  can  the 
head  of  this  kingdom,  without  unreason,  become  the  sub- 
ject of  a  mere  earthly  potentate?  .  .  ."  The  Church  has 
for  its  function  to  direct  humanity  toward  its  supernatural 
destiny,  its  last  end  ;  the  civil  power  is  only  charged  with 
providing  and  securing  the  immediate  purpose  of  the  pre- 
sent life — peace,  security,  order,  plenty.  Is  it  in  accordance 
with  the  dictates  of  reason  that  what  is  final  should  be 
made  subordinate  to  what  is  intermediary — that  the  end 
should  be  made  to  accord  with  the  means,  not  the  means 
with  the  end?  "  It  is  a  truth  attested  by  faith,  by  reason, 
by  our  own  experience,  that  the  happiness  of  the  present 
life,  over  which  preside  the  kings  of  the  earth,  ...  is  only 
a  means  for  procuring  the  life  eternal.  .  .  .  For  procur- 
ing the  sure  attainment  of  this  life  eternal  watches  ever- 
more this  High-Priest,  who  hath  received  from  Christ  the 
mission  of  guiding  humanity  toward  the  everlasting  feli- 
city. .  .  .  See,  then,  what  upsetting  of  ideas  it  would  be  to 
make  of  this  High-Priest  of  the  Catholic  Church,  the  Ro- 
man Pontiff,  the  subject  of  any  earthly  power." 

This  is  a  most  admirable  sketch  of  the  development  of 
the  temporal  power  of  the  Papacy.  Christ  wished  to  make 
the  world  understand  that  the  foundation  and  propagation 
of  His  Church  was  not  the  work  of  any  human  power. 
Hence  in  the  early  ages  "  the  Popes  had  not  the  indepen- 
dence of  sovereignty,  but  that  of  martyrdom  only.  .  .  . 
During  the  first  centuries  they  were  in  fact  the  subjects  of 


THE  TEMPORAL  SOVEREIGNTY  A  NECESSITY.      203 

lay  sovereigns ;  but  we  cannot  conceive  a  single  instant 
during  which  this  state  of  subjection  was  imposed  on  them 
by  right.  The  supreme  spiritual  power  of  the  Pontificate 
bore  within  itself  from  its  very  birth  the  germ  of  its  tem 
poral  power.  With  the  spontaneous  development  of  the 
former,  the  latter  also  continued  to  develop  itself  in  space 
and  time,  in  accordance  with  the  external  conditions  amid 
which  it  grew.  .  .  . 

"  We  see  in  history  how  the  ample  donations,  the  vast 
possessions,  and  the  acts  of  civil  jurisdiction  exercised  by 
the  Roman  Pontiffs  are  things  which  are  traced  back  so 
far  as  to  bring  us  to  the  first  centuries  of  our  era.  In  no 
other  way  can  we  explain  the  extraordinary  phenomenon 
of  a  power  which  came  to  be  placed  in  their  hands  with- 
out their  knowing  it,  against  their  will  even,  as  the  celebrat- 
ed Count  de  Maistre  expresses  and  proves  it.*  Where- 
fore those  who  would  have  the  Pope  stripped  of  his  civil 
principality  would  like  to  see  the  Church  brought  back  to 
her  infant  condition,  to  the  first  stage  of  her  existence. 
And  this  they  would  have  done  without  considering  that, 
in  their  conception,  the  ordinary  condition  corresponding 
to  the  nature  of  Christianity  is  that  first  initial  stage 
which  developed  into  that  grandeur  fore-ordained  by  Provi- 
dence, who  from  out  the  Catacombs  and  the  prisons  led 
the  Popes  through  the  bloody  path  of  martyrdom  to  the 
throne  of  the  persecuting  Caesars." 

Passing  from  a  right  conception  of  the  spiritual  pri- 
macy of  the  Popes  to  its  free  and  full  exercise,  Cardinal 
Pecci  shows  that  this  at  present  is  not  possible  without 
the  possession  of  a  temporal  sovereignty  rendering  the 
Pontiff  independent  of  the  influence  of  any  one  superior. 

*  De  Maistre,  "  Du  Pape,"  1.  i.  c.  vi.  :  "  II  n'y  a  pas  en  Europe  de 
souverainete  plus  justifiable,  s'il  est  permis  de  s'exprimer  ainsi,  que  celle 
des  Souverains  Pontifes.  Elle  estcomme  la  loi  divine,  jitsti/teata  in  semet- 
ipsa.  Mais  ce  qu'il  y  a  de  veritablement  etonnant,  c'est  de  voir  les  Papes 
devenir  souverains  sans  s'en  apercevoir,  et  meme,  a  parler  exactement, 
malgre  eux." 

See  also  in  this  connection  Count  Murphy's  "  Chair  of  Peter,"  2d  ed., 
pp.  158  and  following. 


2O4  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII, 

"  The  Pope  has  to  guard  intact  in  its  integrity  the  de- 
posit of  the  Faith  ;  he  must  preserve  revealed  truth  from 
error  and  corruption  among  the  faithful  peoples.  .  .  .  He 
must  be  free  to  communicate  without  impediment  with 
bishops,  sovereigns,  subjects,  in  order  that  his  word,  the 
organ  and  expression  of  the  divine  will,  may  have  a  free 
course  all  over  the  earth,  and  be  there  canonically  an- 
nounced. 

•'  Now,  imagine  the  Holy  Father  become  the  subject 
of  a  government,  and  deprived  for  a  time  of  the  liberty 
to  exercise  his  apostolic  ministry.  Whenever  his  non  licet 
or  any  decision  of  his  sounded  harsh  to  the  ears  of  who- 
ever was  sovereign  over  him,  or  was  opposed  to  that  sove- 
reign's views,  or  to  what  they  call  '  the  reason  of  state,' 
forthwith  should  we  hear  of  threats,  of  decrees,  of  im- 
prisonment, of  exile,  in  order  to  strangle  the  voice  of 
truth  at  its  birth. 

"  Need  we  recall  Liberius,  sent  into  banishment  by  the 
Emperor  Constantius  for  refusing  to  sanction  the  sentence 
against  St.  Athanasius?  or  John  I.,  imprisoned  by  Theo- 
dosius  for  not  favoring  the  Arians  ?  or  Silverius,  exiled  by 
the  Empress  Theodora  because  he  would  not  receive  to 
communion  the  heretical  Anthimus  ?  or  Martin  I.,  torn 
away  from  the  Basilica  of  the  Saviour  in  Rome,  and  sent 
to  die  among  the  barbarians  of  Pontus  by  the  Emperor 
Constans,  a  Monothelite  ?  or,  in  fact,  all  the  Pontiffs  of 
the  first  centuries,  who  had  no  other  way  to  fulfil  their 
ministry  than  the  courage  to  endure  martyrdom  ?  "  Then 
come  the  recent  instances  of  Pius  VI.  and  Pius  VII. 

"  But,  in  truth,  there  is  no  need  of  prisons  or  decrees  of 
banishment  to  bind  the  hands  of  Popes  who  have  become 
the  subjects  of  another  power.  Everybody  knows  how  easily 
a  government  can,  even  by  indirect  means,  close  up  every 
avenue  to  publicity,  cut  off  all  means  of  communication, 
put  all  sorts  of  obstacles  in  the  way  of  truth,  and  give  false- 
hood a  free  field.  In  such  a  situation  how  is  the  Pope  to 
superintend  the  affairs  without  number  of  all  the  churches, 
to  promote  the  extension  of  God's  kingdom,  to  regulate 


PAPAL  DECISIONS  MUST  BE  UNTRAMMELED.      205 

worship  and  discipline,  to  publish  bulls  and  encyclicals,  to 
convene  councils,  to  grant  or  to  refuse  canonical  institution 
to  bishops,  to  have  at  his  command  the  congregations  and 
courts  which  are  necessary  for  the  management  of  so  many 
weighty  affairs,  to  keep  off  schism,  to  prevent  the  spread  of 
public  heresies,  to  decide  religious  disputes,  to  speak  freely 
to  rulers  and  peoples,  to  send  nuncios  and  ambassadors,  to 
conclude  concordats,  to  employ  censures,  to  regulate,  in 
fact,  the  consciences  of  two  hundred  millions  of  Catholics 
scattered  all  over  the  earth,  to  preserve  inviolate  dogmas 
and  morals,  to  receive  appeals  from  all  parts  of  the  Chris- 
tian world,  to  judge  the  causes  thus  submitted,  to  enforce 
the  execution  of  the  sentences  pronounced— to  fulfil,  in  one 
word,  all  his  duties,  and  to  maintain  all  the  sacred  rights  of 
his  primacy  ? 

"  Here,  then,  is  what  they  are  aiming  at  by  taking  from 
the  Pope  his  temporal  power:  they  mean  to  render  it  im- 
possible for  him  to  exercise  his  spiritual  power." 

The  demonstration  is  a  complete  one.  But  there  is 
another  side  to  the  question.  If  the  Pope,  as  the  supreme 
teacher  and  ruler  of  the  Church  in  spirituals,  has  both  his 
rights  to  maintain  and  his  duties  to  fulfil  with  respect  to 
the  Christian  world,  Christians,  in  part,  have  also  their  in- 
defeasible rights  with  regard  to  the  free  exercise  of  the 
Papal  Primacy. 

"  From  the  Sovereign  Pontiff  proceed  decisions  which 
directly  concern  what  is  deepest  and  most  sacred  in  our 
consciences,  our  faith,  our  hope  of  eternal  felicity.  Every 
Catholic  has  a  right,  in  matters  of  such  an  exalted  nature, 
which  transcend  all  the  things  of  earth  and  of  the  present 
life,  which  nearly  touch  the  interests  of  his  own  immortal 
soul,  that  the  sentence  of  the  judge  who  is  to  guide  him 
toward  eternal  life  shall  come  freely  from  his  lips — so  freely 
that  no  one  may  hint  at  the  possibility  of  such  a  decision 
having  been  obtained  through  the  dictation  of  another,  or 
forced  from  the  giver  by  sheer  violence. 

"  Every  Catholic,  therefore,  demands  that  the  Pope 
shall  be  placed  in  such  a  well-known  condition  of  free- 


206  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIIL 

dom  that  not  only  he  shall  be  independent,  but  that  it 
shall  be  clear  to  the  eyes  of  all,  that  he  is  so.  Now,  how 
can  the  Catholics  of  all  nations  believe  that  the  decisions 
of  their  parent  and  guide  are  thus  free  when  he  is  the  sub- 
ject of  an  Italian,  a  German,  a  French,  or  a  Spanish  sove- 
reign ?" 

To  complete  this  triumphant  demonstration  Cardinal 
Pecci  quotes  from  the  acknowledged  leaders  and  organs  of 
the  long  conspiracy  against  Christianity  and  the  temporal 
power  of  the  Papacy  in  the  last  and  the  present  centuries. 
Mazzini,  writing  to  the  London  Globe  in  August,  1850,  says: 
"  The  abolition  of  the  temporal  power  manifestly  carries 
along  with  it  the  emancipation  of  the  human  mind  from 
the  spiritual  power."  This,  the  Cardinal  remarks,  Mazzini 
frequently  repeats  in  his  "  Pensiero  e  Azione."  Frederick 
II.*  wrote  to  Voltaire:  "All  the  potentates  of  Europe, 
being  unwilling  to  recognize  the  Vicar  of  Christ  in  a  man 
subject  to  another  sovereign,  will  each  create  himself  a  pa- 
triarch in  their  own  dominions.  .  .  .  Thereby  every  one 
of  them  will  by  degrees  fall  away  from  the  unity  of  the 
Church,  and  end  by  having  in  his  kingdom  a  religion  of  his 
own,  just  as  he  has  a  language  of  his  own." 

To  clear  away  the  last  vestige  of  doubt  on  this  point 
the  Cardinal  quotes  the  official  declaration  of  the  Central 
Lodge  of  Carbonarism  in  Italy  :  "  '  Our  final  purpose  is  that 
of  Voltaire  and  the  French  Revolution — the  total  annihila- 
tion of  Catholicism  and  of  the  Christian  idea  itself.'  This 
is  the  result  aimed  at  by  the  anti-Christian  schools  opened 
in  various  Italian  cities  ;  this  is  what  is  meant  by  the  hostili- 
ty fostered  against  the  clergy ;  this  is  what  is  intended  by 
freeing  (as  they  say)  from  all  theocratic  tyranny rf  the  legis- 
lation, public  instruction,  marriage — the  entire  social  body, 
in  a  word.  This  is  the  real  significance  of  the  resurrection 
of  the  country,  of  progress,  and  of  liberty,  as  they  under- 
stand them :  to  abolish  Catholic  worship,  to  suppress  the 
religion  of  Christ,  to  stamp  out  from  all  hearts  the  Chris 

*  "  Correspondence  of  Frederick  II.,"  vol.  xii.  p.  99. 

f  Montanelli,  "  L'Impero  il  Papato,"  etc.,  Florence,  1859. 


AN  ELOQUENT  APPEAL  TO  THE  PERUGIANS.       2O/ 

tian  faith,  and  to  plunge  us  once  more  in  the  darkness  of 
heathenism. 

"  The  conspirators'  plan  is  no  longer  a  thing  to  be  doubt- 
ed of,  except  by  such  as  wish  to  remain  wilfully  blind. 
But  in  what  way  is  it  to  be  carried  out  ?  In  this — and 
note  it  well,  if  you  would  not  fall  into  the  snares  of 
these  evil  men :  by  giving  loud  assurances,  protestations, 
and  solemn  oaths  that  in  no  wise  whatever  do  they  intend 
to  touch  or  to  injure  religion." 

Th«  conclusion  is  a  most  eloquent  appeal  to  the  ances- 
tral faith  and  the  ancestral  devotion  of  the  Perugians  to 
the  Holy  See  and  its  Pontiffs  : 

"  There  is  no  middle  course.  Either  we  have  to  stand 
faithful  to  Christ,  to  His  Church,  to  that  Church's  visible 
Head,  and  against  the  enemies  of  our  religion,  or  to  take 
part  with  these  against  God  and  His  Church. 

"  It  is  no  longer  a  matter  of  policy ;  it  is  a  matter 
of  conscience.  We  cannot  continue  to  hesitate  between 
Christ  and  Belial.  .  .  . 

"  Would  any  one  among  you  prefer  to  espouse  the 
cause  of  the  enemies  of  Christ's  Vicar?  This  would  be 
to  deny  the  traditions  of  your  forefathers ;  it  would  be, 
to  use  the  words  of  the  Perugian  Statute-Book,  *  '  to  be- 
come degenerate  sons  of  ancestors  of  the  noblest  blood.' 
Not  only  were  these  ancestors  of  yours  most  devoted  to 
the  Faith,  but  they  resolved  that  their  own  bodies  should 
be  a  bulwark  to  defend  the  temporal  dominion  of  the  Holy 
See. 

"  When  the  Ghibelline  and  Guelph  factions  had  arisen  in 
Italy,  Perugia  remained  ever  faithful  to  the  Popes.  When 
these  were  obliged  by  popular  turbulence  to  leave  Rome 

*The  Cardinal  in  a  note  refers  to  the  year  727,  when  the  Emperor  Leo 
the  Isaurian,  in  his  insane  war  against  the  Holy  Images,  attacked  and  per- 
secuted Gregory  II.  The  Perugians  spontaneously  and  unanimously  es- 
poused the  cause  of  the  Pope,  and  bound  themselves  "by  a  solemn  oath 
to  defend  the  Pontiffs  life  and  his  State  for  the  future,  and  to  place  them- 
selves and  all  their  interests  under  his  care  " — Solemni  sacramento  se  Ponti- 
jicis  vitam  Statumque  in  perpetuum  defensuram,  ejusqtie  in  fotestate  rebus 
omnibus  futuram  curavit  (MS.  in  Dominicini  Library,  Perugia). 


208  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIIL 

they  found  in  Perugia  a  secure  abode,  *  and  a  place  where 
the  conclaves  could  be  held  in  perfect  liberty,  f  This 
fidelity  shone  forth  wonderfully  during  the  reign  of 
Alexander  IV.,  who  was  wont  to  call  your  ancestors 
'  the  stout  champions  and  the  chosen  defenders  of  the 
Church,  the  rivals  in  courage  and  constancy  of  soul  of 
the  generous  Maccabees.'  \ 

"Your  history,"  the  Cardinal  goes  on  to  say,  "is  full 
of  the  splendid  deeds  done  to  combat  the  enemies  of  the 
Church  and  to  reduce  to  obedience  her  rebellious  (posses- 
sions. So  deep  were  in  these  men's  souls  the  spirit  of  reli- 
gious faith  and  the  love  for  the  Papacy !  Oh  !  if  these 
could  only  come  forth  from  the  peace  of  the  tomb,  with 
what  contempt  they  would  treat  the  advances  of  whoso- 

*See  Sigonio,  De  Regno  Italico,  1.  iii.  "This,"  Cardinal  Pecci  says  in 
a  note,  "  is  made  remarkably  clear  by  what  one  reads  in  the  proemium  to 
each  of  the  Statutes  of  the  Colleges  of  Arts  (Assemblies  of  Guilds),  and 
especially  in  the  Public  Statute-Book  of  (Republican)  Perugia,  where,  among 
other  things,  is  the  following  declaration  :  '  Dimissis  igitur  alienigenis 
et  privatis  affectibus,  Guelphis  et  Sedi  Apostolicse  contrariis,  quicumque 
intra  Augustse  Civitatis  moenia,  illiusque  excultum  et  fecundum  agrum,  se 
parentesve  suos  ortos  esse  dixerit,  hanc  Guelpham  partem  et  Snnctam  Se- 
dem  Apostolicam  profiteatur,  illis  adhzereat,  ipsas  amplectatur  et  foveat,  et 
ab  antique  iwbilissimoque  Perusinorum  sanguine  non  degeneret.' — Wherefore, 
setting  aside  all  foreign  and  private  affections  opposed  to  the  Guelphs  and 
the  Holy  See,  whosoever  can  say  that  he  or  his  parents  were  born  within 
the  walls  of  this  city  of  Augusta-Perugia  or  within  her  well-cultivated  and 
fertile  territory,  must  openly  declare  himself  for,  attach  himself  to,  em- 
brace, and  cherish  this  Guelphic  party  and  the  Holy  Apostolic  See,  and 
not  degenerate  from  the  ancient  and  most  noble  blood  of  the  Perugians  " 
(vol.  i.  of  the  Statutes,  Rub.  473). 

\Conclaves  in  Perugia. — Innocent  III.  having  died  in  Perugia,  Hono- 
rius  III.  was  there  elected  to  succeed  him  ;  so  after  the  death  there  of  Ur- 
ban IV.,  Clement  IV.  was  elected  there  ;  again,  Martin  IV.  died  there,  and 
there  Honorius  IV.  was  elected  in  his  place.  In  1294  was  chosen  in  Pe- 
rugia the  successor  of  Nicholas  IV.  (St.  Celestine  V.)  Finally,  after  the 
death  there  of  Benedict  XI.,  Clement  V.  was  chosen  in  the  same  city  to 
succeed  him. 

$  Alexander  IV.  (1254-61)  addresses  his  letter  of  praise  "to  the  Po- 
desta,  Captain,  Council,  and  Communi  of  Perugia."  They  had  on  the 
present  occasion  defended  the  Pontiff  and  the  Holy  See  against  Manfred. 
Duke  of  Tarentum  ;  the  Pope  gives  their  constant  fidelity  and  valor  ex- 
traordinary and  merited  praise. 


A  NOBLE  LETTER  TO  PIUS  IX. 


209 


ever  should  be  planning  the  spoliation  of  the  Common 
Father  of  the  faithful  and  the  suppression  of  all  liberty 
for  the  Church  !  " 

On  October  26,  1861,  the  Piedmontese  Minister  of 
Worship,  Signer  Miglietti,  issued  a  circular  letter  to  the 
bishops  and  clergy,  the  object  of  which  was  either  to 
frighten  or  to  bribe  them  to  renounce  their  allegiance  to 
Pius  IX.,  to  give  up  the  cause  of  the  temporal  power,  and 
to  declare  for  the  Kingdom  of  Italy. 


II.   FIDELITY   TO   PIUS   IX. 

.  It  was  simply  a  provocative  to  political  treason  as  well 
as  to  religious  schism. 

Cardinal  Pecci  and  his  brother-bishops  were  not  to  be 
caught  by  such  flimsy  artifices,  nor  to  be  overawed  by 
any  penalty  the  triumphant  Revolution  could  inflict.  Their 
answer  was  a  joint  letter,  drawn  up  by  the  Cardinal,  signed 
by  himself  and  his  colleagues,  and  sent  to  the  Holy  Father. 
It  was  a  document  which  would  send  a  thrill  of  religious 
pride  throughout  the  length  and  breadth  of  Italy. 

This  was  one  of  the  first  acts  of  noble  and  resolute  re- 
sistance which  the  Cardinal  and  his  colleagues  opposed  to 
the  progress  and  power  of  impiety  and  revolutionism. 

"  Most  Holy  Father,"  they  said,  "  in  the  fierce  and 
protracted  storm  which  at  this  time  agitates  the  Church  so 
fearfully,  and  which  causes  so  much  anxiety  to  the  great 
heart  of  your  Holiness,  we,  who  are  the  copartners  of  your 
solicitude  and  the  sharers  of  all  your  pain,  have  had  to 
bewail,  as  we  do  still  bewail,  the  unceasing  efforts  made  to 
cause  the  ruin  of  our  populations,  to  separate  them  from 
your  fatherly  rule,  and  to  divide  them  still  more  from  the 
centre  of  Catholic  faith.  To  carry  out  this  purpose  no  sort 
of  seduction  or  deceit  has  been  left  untried.  After  promot- 
ing or  openly  favoring  irreligion  and  libertinism  by  the  un- 
restricted diffusion  of  pestilential  books,  of  erroneous  doc- 
trines and  heterodox  teachings,  they  are  now  plying  the 


2  IO  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

clergy  with  provocatives  and  enticements  aiming  to  detach 
them  from  their  lofty  duties  and  from  the  obedience  due  to 
their  prelates,  so  as  then  to  use  them  as  instruments  for 
their  own  guilty  designs. 

"  And  as  all  these  attempts  met  with  an  insurmount- 
able obstacle  in  the  firm  and  unanimous  zeal  of  the  episco 
pal  body,  they  have  now  again  made  these  the  object  of 
new  assaults,  undiscouraged  by  the  partial  endeavors  made 
to  break  down  the  constancy  of  many  of  our  venerated 
brethren  in  the  revolutionized  provinces  of  Italy.  Defama- 
tions, insults,  threats,  confiscation,  imprisonment,  banish- 
ment having  failed,  they  have  had  recourse  to  the  disloyal 
pens  of  prevaricating  priests  to  plead,  in  their  turn,  the 
cause  of  the  present  Revolution.  And  seeing  how  little 
heed  was  paid  to  the  apologetic  declamations  of  these  men, 
which  died  away  and  were  lost  like  the  last  sounds  of  a 
brass  bell,  it  has  been  lately  deemed  proper  that  an  official 
act  (of  the  minister)  should  be  directed  toward  weakening 
the  fidelity  of  the  bishops.  It  aims  to  detach  them  from 
you  and  from  the  cause  of  the  Supreme  Pontificate,  and, 
setting  forth  old  accusations,  it  seeks  to  pledge  them  to 
acts  of  approbation  and  adhesion  toward  all  that  has  been 
accomplished  against  the  inviolable  laws  of  justice  and  re- 
ligion, and  against  the  rights  of  the  Holy  See. 

"  They  pretend,  in  fact,  that  the  clergy  should  recognize 
both  in  right  and  in  fact  the  boasted  restoration  of  a  na- 
tionality as  understood  by  the  revolutionists,  and  which  is 
the  result  of  conspiracy,  deception,  injustice,  and  sacrilege. 
They  demand  that  the  clergy,  like  every  other  social  class 
and  institution,  should  be  subject,  in  the  discharge  of  their 
mission,  to  the  dictation  of  the  state — just  as  if  the  priest- 
hood was  the  offspring  of  the  political  power,  and  that 
from  it  and  not  from  God  was  derived  the  mission  to 
preach  the  truth  and  teach  the  nations. 

"  They  take  it  as  a  crime  that  the  clergy  should  show 
such  patient  resignation  in  enduring  such  storms  of  misfor- 
tune, so  many  humiliations  and  oppressions  of  every  kind, 
taking  it  for  granted  that  they  ought  to  be  the  panegyrists 


E       _ 
111       j 

£  5 


2  I  2  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

and  co-operators  of  a  policy  which  their  conscience  reproves, 
which  the  law  of  God  condemns. 

"  The  clergy  are  promised,  in  order  to  bribe  and  attract 
them,  pledges  and  assurances  of  being  left  at  peace  in  the 
exercise  of  their  religious  ministrations — as  if  the  sad  suc- 
cession of  hostile  measures  and  usurpations  consummated 
up  to  the  present  moment  did  not  sufficiently  unmask  the 
hideous  illusions  and  disloyalty  of  such  promises.  .  .  . 

"They  are  offered,  as  the  basis  of  reconciliation,  to 
accept  the  condemned  and  fatal  system  of  the  separation 
of  Church  and  state,  which,  being  equivalent  to  divorcing 
the  state  from  the  Church,  would  force  Catholic  society  to 
free  itself  from  all  religious  influence.  .  .  . 

"  The  tendency  of  this  last  intrigue  is  patent  enough. 
It  is  calculated  that  the  clergy  of  Italy,  violating  their  own 
duties,  and  separating  themselves  from  their  lawful  pastors, 
and  from  you  principally,  Most  Holy  Father,  who  are  their 
Supreme  Chief  and  Ruler,  should  abase  themselves  to  legiti- 
mize and  sanction  the  acts  accomplished  by  the  Revolu- 
tion, and  thereby  become  the  advocate  and  accomplice  of 
the  total  spoliation  and  destruction  of  the  sacred  sove- 
reignty of  the  Church,  which  they  are  now  planning  so 
noisily. 

"  We,  perceiving  with  deep  grief  what  refined  artifice 
the  conspirators  have  had  recourse  to  during  these  last 
months  in  order  to  mature  their  design,  have  felt  the  ne- 
cessity of  examining  and  fortifying  our  relations  of  subjec- 
tion and  union  with  Your  Holiness  and  with  the  Apostolic 
Chair.  And  therefore  it  is  that,  while  others  among  our 
venerable  brothers  in  the  episcopal  office,  either  by  acts  or 
by  their  writings,  manifest  openly  their  rejection  and  ab- 
horrence of  this  governmental  act,  we,  on  the  other  hand, 
have  rather  followed  the  impulse  of  filial  affection  by  lift- 
ing toward  you  our  eyes  and  voice  in  this  new  calamity,  to 
signify  anew  most  solemnly  our  perfect  adhesion  to  your 
teachings  and  to  the  glorious  resistance  which  you,  al- 
though saddened  and  opposed  in  so  many  ways  by  unwor- 
thy children,  have  made  so  courageously  for  the  triumph 


UNSWERVING  FIDELITY  OF  THE  EPISCOPATE. 


2I3 


of   religion,   of   justice,    and    of    the  sacred  rights  of   the 
Holy  See. 

"  This  declaration  of  our  sentiments  and  purpose,  by 
which  \ve  glory  to  be  always  with  you  and  for  you,  being 
thus  made  public,  shall  be  an  eloquent  argument,  giving  a 
peremptory  answer  to  every  flattering  advance,  solicitation, 
and  threat.  Faithful  to  the  obligations  which  we  took  on 
ourselves  with  our  episcopal  trust,  faithful  as  well  to  the 
oath  taken  on  the  day  of  our  consecration,  we  protest  that 
in  you,  the  successor  of  St.  Peter,  the  Vicar  of  Christ,  the 
visible  Head  of  His  Church,  we  venerate  with  unchangeable 
respect  the  centre  of  unity  of  the  faith,  the  depositary  and 
the  infallible  teacher  of  all  revealed  truth  which  pertains 
to  the  spiritual  destinies  and  the  eternal  salvation  of  man- 
kind. From  this  divine  teaching  authority  Christian  so- 
ciety derives  its  light  and  its  form.  And  when  the  over- 
bearing might  of  the  world,  in  order  to  supplant  it,  pre- 
sumes to  enter  the  sanctuary  and  to  impose  on  men  a  fic- 
titious and  deceptive  morality,  it  is  time  that  it  should 
hear  us  repeat :  '  We  must  obey  God  rather  than  men.' 

"  In  you  [we  also  revere]  the  supreme  regulator  of  the 
discipline  of  the  Church,  on  whom  alone  the  episcopal 
body  and  the  inferior  clergy  have  to  depend  in  all  that 
regards  the  exercise  of  their  mission  and  the  relations  of 
the  Church  with  civil  society.  We  therefore  sovereignly 
deplore  both  the  pretension  of  our  modern  politicians,  who 
endeavor  to  subject  to  their  bondage  all  ecclesiastical  offi- 
ces, and  the  blindness  of  those  priests  who,  forgetful  of 
their  august  calling,  allowed  themselves  to  be  won  over  by 
blandishments,  and,  dazzled  by  the  false  promises  of  the 
world,  have  strayed  away  from  the  sheepfold  of  Christ. 

"  And  with  regard  to  the  sacred  sovereignty  and  the 
temporal  dominions,  against  which  so  many  conspiracies 
and  expeditions  are  planned,  we  accept  no  other  senti- 
ments and  declarations  than  those  of  the  Church  herself, 
attested  even  in  our  day  by  the  unanimous  suffrage  of  the 
Catholic  episcopate,  and  proclaimed  by  ourselves  in  our 
pastoral  letters  to  our  diocesans  and  in  many  addresses 


2  J  4  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

on  the  same  subject  laid  before  the  pontifical  throne. 
While,  in  the  sense  of  the  definitions  of  the  oecumenical 
councils,  we  acknowledge  the  inviolability  of  sacred  en- 
dowments and  ecclesiastical  possessions,  we  also  consider 
this  sacred  sovereignty  to  be  a  special  ordinance  of  divine 
Providence  which  no  human  power  may  lawfully  assail— 
an  ordinance  directed  toward  protecting  tin-  in.i <-]n  mirnce 
of  the  Church,  toward  securing  to  her  visibh  the 

fulness  of  the   liberty  ncce—  ..  the  pr  f 

the  supreme  au'-nonty  i  .  .   over  the 

whole  Cath»  d.  .  .  . 

"  In  th<  sion   of  such  principles  and   convictions, 

and    iu   fidelity  to   the  md   to  your 

person,  we  desire  to  be.  with  the  divine  help,  n   in 

the  lace  of  whatever  may  befall  us,  of  dangers  and  contra- 
dictions to  which  we  may  be  exposed  ;  nay,  more,  the 
greater  these  may  be,  the  more  do  we  feel  the  duty  of 
standing  at  your  side.  Most  Holy  Father,  and  to  find  in 
your  invincible  constancy,  in  your  serenity  of  soul  amid  .ill 
the  tribulations  which  press  upon  you,  inspnation  and  in- 
creasing comfort  in  the  fulfilment  of  our  pastoral  office." 

When  Pius  IX.  will  have  passed  away,  and  Piedmon- 
tese  rule  will  restrict,  even  within  the  Vatican,  the  liberty 
and  jurisdiction  of  his  successor,  how  sweet  it  will  be  to 
that  successor  to  receive  such  encouragements  from  his 
brother  bishops  all  over  the  world  as  are  contained  in 
the  brave  and  noble  sentiments  we  have  just  been  read- 
ing! 


CHAPTER    XV. 

THE  BATTLE  WITH  IRRELIGION  RAGES  FIERCELY — CARDI- 
NAL PECCI  HEADS  THE  EPISCOPAL  BODY  IX  DEFEND- 
ING (I.)  THE  LIBERTY  OF  THE  CHURCH. 

*T^VURING  the  first  fourteen  years  of  Cardinal  Pecci's 
fM^J  episcopal  labors  in  Perugia  he  had  been  most  zeal- 
ous, as  we  have  seen,  in  preparing  both  priests  and  people 
among  his  flock  for  the  trials  which  he  feared,  if  he  did  not 
foresee,  were  inevitable  in  the  near  future.  The  foremost 
position  among  the  hierarchy  of  Umbria,  given  him,  fiom 
his  first  appointment,  by  his  learning  and  his  great  repu- 
tation, and  afterward  confirmed  by  his  elevation  to  the 
cardinalate,  threw  upon  him  the  labor,  if  not  the  respon- 
sibility, of  leading  his  brother-bishops  in  every  public 
movement  made  for  the  defence  of  religion  and  the  au- 
thority of  the  Holy  See. 

What  has  been  said  in  the  last  chapters  may  enable  the 
reader  to  judge  how  difficult,  not  to  say  morally  impossi- 
ble, it  was  for  the  pastors  of  souls  to  fulfil  their  appointed 
duty  or  exercise  their  needful  authority  in  spirituals  in  the 
face  of  the  tyrannical  and  minute  restrictions  imposed  upon 
them  in  every  direction  and  at  every  step  by  the  Piedmon- 
tese  invaders. 

Let  the  readers  of  this  book  not  feel  surprised  that 
we  should  use  the  word  "invaders"  here.  In  the  Eng- 
lish-speaking world,  during  the  years  1859,  1860,  and 
1861,  non-Catholics,  elated  by  the  prospective  downfall  of 
the  Papacy,  rejoiced  at  every  step  in  advance  of  the  revo- 
lutionary forces  under  Garibaldi,  or  the  Piedmontese  arms 
on  land  and  sea  against  the  States  of  the  Church,  garri- 
soned by  a  few  thousand  men,  barely  sufficient  to  maintain 
order  and  to  repress  the  perpetual  outbreaks  caused  at 
almost  every  point  by  the  secret  societies.  There  had 


2  1 6  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

been  for  the  Pontifical  government  but  little  trouble  in 
keeping  its  own  populations  quiet,  if  England  and  France 
had  not  been  either  urging  on  Piedmont  to  seize  on  all  the 
States  of  the  Peninsula  or  encouraging  directly  Cavour  and 
Victor  Emmanuel  to  invade  the  neighboring  independent 
and  sovereign  principalities,  in  a  time  of  peace,  without 
any  provocation,  and  to  carry  out  the  plans  of  a  dynastic 
ambition,  cloaked  over  by  the  pretence  of  Italian  patriot- 
ism and  the  satisfaction  of  the  national  aspirations. 

Cavour — as  his  published  Life  and  Memoirs  now  amply 
prove — used  Mazzini  and  Garibaldi,  with  their  formidable 
and  wide-spread  organization  of  revolutionary  clubs,  as  the 
forerunners- and  auxiliaries  of  the  Piedmontese  army  and 
navy  in  this  unholy  and  unblessed  war.  These  dark  asso- 
ciations, with  the  revolutionary,  anti-social,  and  irreligious 
passions  with  which  they  had  filled  every  portion  of  the 
Peninsula,  every  city  and  town,  were  like  the  dynamite 
placed  in  some  mighty  reef  beneath  the  waves  which  the 
hand  of  the  engineer  had  scientifically  mined  and  prepar- 
ed. Mazzini  had  made  all  ready  for  the  explosion  ere,  in 
May,  1860,  Garibaldi  had  landed  a  single  soldier  at  Mar- 
sala, or  before,  later  in  the  season,  Fanti  had  sent  his  army 
toward  the  Marches  and  Umbria,  or  Persano  had  received 
orders  to  co-operate  by  bombarding  Ancona.  Napoleon 
III.  had  his  troops  in  Rome,  feigning  to  protect  the  inde- 
pendence of  the  Holy  See  and  the  inviolability  of  the  ter- 
ritory still  left  to  it,  while  he  was  helping  Cavour  to  carry 
out  effectively  the  Piedmontese  plans,  and  betraying  into 
the  hands  of  the  invading  generals,  the  little  Papal  army, 
commanded  by  the  most  heroic  and  accomplished  soldier 
France  had  known  since  the  first  Napoleon. 

It  was  an  unholy  war  and  a  cowardly  war,  carried  on  by 
base  intrigues  and  by  means  as  unhallowed  as  those  which 
Antiochus  of  old  used  to  subjugate  the  reunited  remnants 
of  the  Twelve  Tribes  and  to  crush  out  in  the  souls  of  a 
small  but  brave  people  their  faith  in  the  living  God. 

It  is  impossible  to  understand  either  the  times  or 
country  amid  which  Cardinal  Pecci  lived  and  battled  for 


A  PROPAGANDA  OF  IMPIETY  AND  IMMORALITY. 


217 


religion  without  understanding  the  enemies  he  had  to 
contend  with,  the  ends  for  which  these  fought,  and  the 
weapons  they  used  against  the  Church,  her  chief,  her 
priesthood  and  faithful  people. 

On  November  the  2ist,  1860,  the  archbishops  and 
bishops  of  the  Marches  sent  to  the  Piedmontese  gover- 
nor or  commissary-general  an  eloquent  remonstrance  enu- 
merating the  effects  of  the  regime  introduced  by  him  and 
his  subordinates,  and  the  means  taken  by  them  to  alienate 
the  people  of  these  provinces  from  their  allegiance  to  God 
and  the  faith  of  their  fathers.  A  few  extracts  will  paint 
the  situation. 


HOW   THE     ENEMIES   OF    GOD   AND     MAN   GO   TO   WORK   IN" 

ITALY. 

"  Our  hearts,"  they  say,  "  cruelly  wounded  and  torn,, 
are  filled  with  grief  and  desolation  by  the  thought  of  the 
spiritual  ruin  which  threatens  our  children,  our  flocks,  pur- 
chased by  the  blood  of  the  Lamb  without  spot.  Never- 
theless, after  all  the  contradictions,  the  trials,  the  obstacles 
we  have  had  to  encounter,  not  one  spark  of  charity,  of 
zeal,  of  pastoral  and  fatherly  solicitude  has  been  quenched 
in  our  souls — we  solemnly  affirm  it,  with  our  anointed 
hands  on  our  hearts  ;  and,  with  the  help  of  God's  grace, 
these  sentiments  shall  never  depart  from  us  through  fault 
of  ours. 

"  We  scarcely  believe  our  own  eyes  or  the  testimony 
of  our  own  ears  \vhen  we  see  or  hear  of  the  excesses,  the 
abominations,  the  disorders  witnessed  in  the  chief  cities 
of  our  respective  dioceses,  to  the  shame  and  horror  of  the 
beholders,  to  the  great  detriment  of  religion,  of  decency, 
of  public  morality,  since  the  ordinances  against  which  we 
protest  deprive  us  of  all  power  to  protect  religion  and 
morality  or  to  repress  the  prevailing  crimes  and  licentious- 
ness. 

"  The  public  sale,  at  nominal  prices,  of  mutilated  trans- 


2  1  8  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

lations  of  the  Bible,  of  pamphlets  of  every  description 
saturated  with  pestilential  errors  or  infamous  obscenities, 
is  permitted  in  the  cities  which,  a  few  months  ago,  had 
never  heard  of  these  scandalous  productions.  .  .  .  The 
impunity  with  which  the  most  horrible  blasphemies  are 
uttered  in  public,  and  the  worse  utterance  of  expressions 
and  sentiments  that  breathe  a  hellish  wickedness ;  the  ex- 
position, the  sale  in  public,  and  the  diffusion  of  statuettes, 
pictures,  and  engravings  which  brutally  outrage  piety, 
purity,  the  commonest  decency ;  the  representation  in  our 
city  theatres  of  pieces  and  scenes  in  which  are  turned  into 
ridicule  the  Church,  Christ's  immaculate  Spouse,  the  Vicar 
of  Christ,  the  ministers  of  religion,  and  everything  which 
piety  and  faith  hold  to  be  most  dear;  in  fine,  the  fearful 
licentiousness  of  public  manners,  the  odious  devices  re- 
sorted to  for  perverting  the  innocent  and  the  young,  the 
evident  wish  and  aim  to  make  immorality,  obscenity,  un- 
cleanness  triumph  among  all  classes — such  are,  your  Excel- 
lency, the  rapid  and  faint  outlines  of  the  scandalous  state 
of  things  created  in  the  Marches  by  the  legislation  and 
discipline  so  precipitately  imposed  on  them  by  the  Sar- 
dinian government. 

"  We  appeal  to  your  Excellency,  .  .  .  could  we  remain 
silent  and  indifferent  spectators  of  this  immense  calamity 
without  violating  our  most  sacred  duty?" 

Such  was  the  courageous  and  indignant  voice  which 
arose  from  the  episcopal  body  in  the  Marches.  It  soon 
had  a  worthy  echo  on  the  other  side  of  the  Apennines. 
There  the  bishops  of  Umbria  found  an  eloquent  mouth- 
piece and  intrepid  interpreter  in  the  Cardinal  Archbishop 
of  Perugia.  Undismayed  by  the  outrages  and  sufferings 
which  his  old  schoolmate  and  friend,  the  saintly  Cardinal 
de  Angelis,  Archbishop  of  Fermo,  was  made  to  undergo 
for  his  resistance  to  Piedmontese  rule,  Cardinal  Pecci  con- 
centrated all  the  energy  of  his  character,  style,  and  convic- 
tions into  the  impressive  document  from  which  we  are 
about  to  quote.  It  sounds  like  the  solemn  act  of  men 
who  know  that  by  publishing  to  the  world  thisvgrand  pro- 


JOINT  PROTEST  OF  THE  UM BRIAN  HIERARCHY.     219 

test   they  are  drawing  on  themselves  the  worst    penalties 
which   unlawful  and    unrestrained  might   can  inflict. 

Let  the  reader  judge  whether  or  not  Cardinal  Pecci 
was  defending  the  Christian  religion,  assailed  in  its  very 
essence : 

"  In  the  year  of  salvation  one  thousand  eight  hundred  and 
sixty,  in  the  month  of  December: 

"  We,  the  undersigned,  to  whom,  albeit  unworthy,  the 
Eternal  Priest  and  Pastor  Christ  Jesus,  through  His  Vicar 
on  earth,  the  Roman  Pontiff,  has  committed  the  care  and 
government  of  the  churches  over  which  we  are  set,  in  con- 
sequence of  the  proclamation,  which  has  just  been  made 
in  these  provinces  of  Umbria  in  the  name  of  the  Sardi- 
nian government,  of  certain  decrees  which  bear  on  reli- 
gious interests  and  ecclesiastical  discipline,  find  ourselves 
impelled  by  our  pastoral  office  to  make  freely  and  solemnly 
the  following  declaration  of  our  sentiments  : 

"  It  is  a  grievous  error  against  Catholic  doctrine  to 
pretend  that  the  Church  is  the  subject  of  any  earthly 
power  and  bound  by  the  same  economy  and  relations 
which  regulate  civil  society.  The  Church  is  not  a  human 
institution,  nor  is  it  a  portion  of  the  political  edifice,  al- 
though it  is  destined  to  promote  the  welfare  of  the  men 
among  whom  it  lives.  It  affirms  that  from  God  come 
directly  its  own  being,  its  constitution,  and  the  necessary 
faculties  for  attaining  its  own  sublime  destiny,  which  is 
one  different  (from  that  of  the  state)  and  altogether  of  a 
supernatural  order.  Divinely  ordered,  with  a  hierarchy  of 
its  own,  it  is  by  its  nature  independent  of  the  state. 

"  This  native  independence,  this  condition,  so  vital  to  the 
Church,  of  being  able  to  extend  the  blessings  of  its  heaven- 
ly mission,  is  a  thing  which  has  ever  been  respected  in  the 
midst  of  the  illustrious  populations  of  Umbria  whom  God 
placed  under  our  episcopal  care.  Beneath  "the  overshadow- 
ing protection  of  the  Pontifical  government,  which  we  shall 
ever  acknowledge  as  the  work  of  Providence,  created  for 
the  indispensable  and  free  exercise  of  the  power  of  the 


2  2O  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

Church,  it  had  not  to  dread  the  obstacles  and  fetters  im- 
posed on  it  elsewhere  by  a  secular  policy  either  suspicious 
or  unbelieving. 

"  Wherefore  most  painful  to  our  hearts  and  most  bane 
ful  to  the  spiritual  interests  of  our  flocks  is  every  innova- 
tion which,  under  the  name  and  glitter  of  modern  civiliza- 
tion, without  any  dependence  on  the  Supreme  Pastor,  peo- 
ple pretend  to  introduce  among  us  by  these  recent  decrees, 
which  gravely  wound  the  liberty  of  the  Church,  which  make 
no  account  of  ancient,  most  sacred,  and  ever-revered  in- 
terests, which  set  aside  and  annul  inviolable  prerogatives 
and  institutions. 

"  Whosoever  considers  the  spirit  of  these  decrees  must 
perceive  at  the  first  glance  that  here  in  our  country  also 
it  is  resolved  to  make  the  Church  the  slave  of  the  state, 
and  to  subject  and  co-ordinate  her  divine  mission  to  the 
low  views  of  a  worldly  policy.  .  .  . 

"  We  observe,  besides,  with  a  sad  surprise,  that  these 
innovations  are  proclaimed  in  the  name  of  a  government 
which  holds  by  its  fundamental  law  '  the  Catholic,  Apos- 
tolic, and  Roman  religion  as  the  sole  religion  of  the 
state,'  and  which,  when  it  ordered  its  armies  to  occupy 
these  provinces,  declared  its  purpose  to  be  '  to  restore  in 
Italy  the  principles  of  the  moral  order' 

"  A  Catholic  government  contradicts  itself  every  time 
that  it  lays  its  hand  on  the  sanctuary  and  invades  the 
sacred  province  of  the  priesthood  ;  every  time  it  changes 
by  its  own  arbitrary  act  the  external  conditions  of  the 
Church,  and  so  straitens  the  latter  as  to  reduce  it  to  a 
state  of  bondage.  Nor  can  the  purpose  of  reforming  the 
discipline  of  the  Church  give  a  color  of  legitimacy  to  such 
an  unrighteous  undertaking. 

"  Determined  not  to  give  up  the  guardianship  of  the 
sacred  rights  entrusted  to  our  keeping,  we  lift  our  voices, 
and  in  presence  of  God  and  of  men  we  protest  loudly 
against  all  and  every  the  innovations  and  ordinances  which 
wound  the  rights  and  liberties  of  the  Church,  as  embodied 
in  the  recent  decrees.  In  especial,  moreover,  .  .  . 


THE  CHURCH'S  SUFFERINGS  DEPICTED.  221 

"  We  protest  against  such  as  regard  the  persons  belong- 
ing to  the  Church,  by  the  suppression  of  ecclesiastical  tri- 
bunals. .  .  . 

"  We  protest  against  such  as  are  adverse  to  the  institu- 
tions of  the  Church  by  subjecting  to  the  censure  of  the 
state  every  ecclesiastical  provision  and  disposition  ;  by 
withdrawing  from  the  direction  and  care  of  the  bishops 
the  pious  foundations,  even  when  deriving  their  origin 
from  the  Church  itself  or  entrusted  to  the  Church  by  the 
will  of  the  donors ;  by  prohibiting  all  care  and  interfer- 
ence of  the  bishops  with  the  establishments  of  education 
.and  instruction,  compelling  the  rectors  of  parishes  to  do 
without  sacramental  registers  and  the  books  necessary  to 
their  pastoral  ministry.  .  .  . 

"  We  must  deplore  the  vexations  committed  against 
priests,  accompanied  by  reprimands,  threats,  arrest,  impri- 
sonment, and  banishment.  We  deplore  the  violation  of  the 
cloister,  the  taking  possession  of  sacred  asylums,  the  seques- 
tration and  suppression  of  religious  communities.  We  must 
deplore  the  occasions  given  so  frequently  to  the  clergy  to 
engender  dissension  and  scandal,  and  the  seductions  held 
out  to  them  to  tempt  them  away  from  the  due  subjection 
to  their  superiors.  We  must  deplore  the  licentiousness  of 
the  theatre  and  the  press,  and  the  continual  snares  laid  to 
surprise  pious  souls,  to  undermine  faith  by  circulating  in- 
famous pamphlets  and  heterodox  writings,  and  by  the  de- 
clamations of  fanatical  preachers  of  impiety.  .  .  . 

"  And  we  make  these  declarations  in  order  not  to  be- 
tray the  most  sacred  rights,  which  we  are  bound  to  protect 
by  the  solemn  oaths  we  have  taken,  and  by  the  strict  duties 
prescribed  by  our  office  and  our  conscience,  inasmuch  as 
our  silence  would  take  the  scandalous  color  of  connivance 
or  of  criminal  weakness ;  and  because  at  the  sound  of  our 
voice,  at  the  publicity  given  to  this  remonstrance,  the  faith- 
ful will  take  heart,  for  they  deplore  bitterly  in  their  secret 
souls  the  wrongs  and  the  ruin  caused  to  their  mother. 

"  Christian  charity  bids  us  never  to  despair  of  the  re- 
pentance and  amendment  of  our  neighbor,  and  to  oppose 


222  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

the  armor  of  prayer  to  those  who  attack  us.  We  do  pray 
for  them,  and  offer  up  our  petitions  that  their  repentance 
may  help  to  render  more  glorious  the  certain  triumph  of 
the  Church,  to  which  faith  teaches  us  the  divine  protection 
can  never  fail,  and  that  even  the  gates  of  hell  shall  never 
prevail  against  her." 

Signed  by  the  Cardinal  Archbishop-Bishop  of  Perugia, 
the  Archbishop  of  Spoleto,  the  Bishops  of  Terni, 
Foligno,  Citta  di  Castello,  Assisi,  Nocera,  Citta  del- 
la  Pieve,  Gabbio,  Todi,  Amelia,  Narni,  and  Rieti.* 

The  war  against  God,  against  Christian  society,  against 
the  dearest,  truest  interests  of  humanity  and  country,  had 
been  inaugurated  by  the  Italian  Revolution.  This  was 
the  coup  d'essai  by  which  the  anti-Christian  and  anti-social 
combined  forces  were  trying  their  power,  first,  against  the 
Papacy  and  Catholicism  in  the  very  seat  of  their  authority, 
before  they  tried  their  hand,  as  they  are  now  doing  in 
Belgium  and  in  France  and  in  Switzerland ;  Germany  and 
Great  Britain  are  to  follow. 


II.    THE  NOBLE   DEFENCE   OF  DOMESTIC   SOCIETY. 

Cardinal  Pecci  stands  forth  at  the  head  of  his  brethren, 
organizing  and  leading  the  resisting  forces,  whose  only  arms 
are  truth  and  justice.  It  is  a  sublime  struggle;  it  cannot 
be  a  doubtful  one. 

One  of  the  most  baneful  innovations  introduced  by  the 
Piedmontese  invaders  into  a  country  where  for  so  many 
centuries  no  religion  had  prevailed  save  the  Catholic  reli- 
gion alone,  regarded  marriage,  which  was  entirely  laicized, 
being  made  a  civil  transaction  subject  to  the  sole  laws  of 
the  state,  and  independent  in  every  way  of  any  religious 
consecration  or  formality.  Indeed,  among  a  population 

*  "  Scelta  di  Atti  Episcopal!  del  Cardinale  Gioacchino  Pecci,  Arci- 
vescovo  Vescovo  di  Perugia,  ora  Leone  XIII.,  Sommo  Pontefice,"  Roma, 
1879,  PP-  301-305. 


224  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIIL 

which  had  been  exclusively  Catholic  for  fifteen  hundred 
years,  the  subversion  of  all  Church  discipline  and  regula- 
tions was  so  sudden  and  so  thorough  that,  with  a  stroke  of 
the  pen,  the  pastors  of  souls  were  forbidden  to  keep  parish 
registers,  and  the  records  of  births,  marriages,  and  deaths 
were  transferred  to  the  municipal  officers.  The  whole 
sacramental  system  of  the  Church,  the  entire  order  of 
priestly  duty  in  its  most  sacred  ministrations,  were  set 
aside  as  abruptly  and  as  peremptorily  as  if  the  change  were 
taking  place  in  one  of  the  Feejee  Islands,  where  the  inhabi- 
tants had  been  fetichists  and  cannibals  in  the  last  genera- 
tions, and  their  present  conquerors  imposed  anew  the  old 
ancestral  customs. 

The  archbishops  and  bishops  of  Umbria  had  there- 
upon issued  a  declaration  drawn  up  by  Cardinal  Pecci,  and 
which  remains  one  of  the  noblest  and  most  eloquent  monu- 
ments of  episcopal  independence  and  courage  of  that  dark- 
period.  But  the  Cardinal  did  not  rest  satisfied  with  this 
joint  action  of  himself  and  brethren.  He  addressed  him- 
self directly  to  the  king. 

"  Sire,"  he  writes,  "  the  extraordinary  anomaly  of  civil 
marriage  imposed  on  the  populations  of  Umbria  by  a  de- 
cree of  the  Sardinian  commissary,  the  Marquis  Pepoli,  dated 
October  31,  1860,  was  not  then  fully  understood  and 
appreciated  in  its  entire  reach  and  consequences.  The 
Umbrian  hierarchy,  after  witnessing  for  more  than  a  year 
a  lamentable  succession  of  sacrilegious  usurpations  and 
shameful  acts,  could  have  drawn  from  these  alone  a  suffi- 
cient reason  for  mourning  and  trembling  for  the  fate  of 
their  people.  .  .  .  They  did  not  delay  to  raise  their  voice 
in  deploring  it,  and  in  the  joint  protest  sent  to  the  govern- 
ment in  December,  1860,  they  denounced  the  innovation 
as  one  of  the  most  baneful  among  the  many  carried  out 
to  the  detriment  of  religion  and  the  sacred  rights  of  the 
Church. 

"  Enlightened,  moreover,  by  the  guilty  results  of  this 
deplorable  change,  the  bishops,  after  an  experience  of 
several  months,  have  published  lately  a  doctrinal  '  Decla- 


A  DEFENCE  OF  CHRISTIAN  MARRIAGE.  ^25 

ration,'  in  which  the  innovation  is  submitted  to  examina- 
tion, its  irreligious  character  is  laid  bare,  and  the  capital 
points  of  its  discordance  with  Catholic  doctrine  are  placed 
in  evidence. 

"  Your  Majesty  will  permit  me  to  place  in  your  hands 
a  copy  of  this  '  Declaration.'  For  it  is  exceedingly  import- 
ant that  you  should  know  and  see  in  its  full  light  an  act  of 
such  serious  consequence,  done  by  the  caprice  of  an  extra- 
ordinary official,  who  came  hither,  after  the  military  occu- 
pation of  these  provinces,  to  make  laws  in  your  royal  name. 
It  is  an  act  which  still  works  out  its  effects,  corrupting 
consciences  and  the  public  morality ;  it  now  requires  a 
remedy,  which  can  only  come  from  the  power  from  which 
it  emanates. 

"  Your  Majesty  must  bear  with  me  if  I,  who,  though 
the  last  in  merit  among  my  venerable  colleagues,  am  bound 
by  stricter  ties  to  the  Catholic  cause  and  the  Holy  Roman 
Church,  the  universal  teacher  and  guardian  of  the  divine 
rights,  do  now  endeavor  to  place  briefly  beneath  your  eyes 
the  inconsistency  and  deformity  of  this  anomaly,  consid- 
ered in  its  civil  and  religious  bearings.  .  .  . 

"...  As  to  its  religious  aspect,  which  is  the  most  im- 
portant, your  Majesty  needs  only,  in  order  to  weigh  well 
the  gravity  of  this  act,  to  remember  what  you  witnessed 
yourself  in  1851  and  1852  while  the  projected  law  of  civil 
marriage  was  discussed  in  the  Piedmontese  Chambers.  .  .  . 

"If  your  Majesty  will  only  now  take  the 'trouble  to  read 
calmly  the  few  pages  of  our  '  Declaration,'  you  will  feel 
certain  that  this  projected  law,  which  it  is  pretended  is  a 
boon  to  Umbria,  is  of  this  (anti  Christian)  character.  .  .  . 
This  is  shown  by  the  fundamental  conception  of  the  law 
itself,  which  is  based  on  the  theory  of  the  separability  of 
the  contract  from  the  sacrament.  By  dissociating  mar- 
riage from  every  religious  element  it  is  given  features  of  a 
merely  human  character.  And  by  overlooking  the  divine 
institution  and  economy  which  regulate  marriage  in  its 
very  essence,  the  law  takes  upon  itself  exclusively  to  ar- 
range what  is  most  intimate  in  the  matter,  as  if  it  regu- 


226  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

lated  only  an  ordinary  transaction  of  civil  origin  and  com- 
petence. 

"  This  anti-Christian  character  is  shown  by  the  source 
itself  from  which  the  law  derives.  For  it  must  either 
come  from  pagan  naturalism,  which  knew  nothing  of  the 
fact  that  God  had  raised  the  matrimonial  contract  to  the 
dignity  of  a  sacrament ;  or  from  the  heretical  corruptions 
of  Protestantism,  which,  having  troubled  the  very  springs 
of  revealed  truth,  rejected  the  sanctity  of  the  matrimo- 
nial union  as  belonging  to  Christian  dogma;  or,  again, 
from  the  systematic  unbelief  of  our  modern  Socialists,  who 
aim  at  overturning  from  the  foundations  the  entire  social 
and  religious  orders. 

"  This  character  is  also  shown  by  the  motives  on  which 
the  law  is  based,  which  are  not  only  futile  and  insufficient, 
when  there  is  question  of  justifying  an  act  of  this  moment, 
but  reveal  a  purpose  sadly  out  of  accord  with  Catholic 
doctrine. 

"  They  pretend  to  assert  thereby  the  fulness  of  the 
state  jurisdiction,  and,  under  the  cloak  of  '  civilization  ' 
and  '  progress,'  to  set  about  transforming  God's  own  work : 
they  command  men's  consciences  to  accommodate  them- 
selves to  a  factitious  tie  which  Christian  doctrine  declares 
to  be  illicit  and  most  criminal  apart  from  the  sacrament. 

"  With  treacherous  phrases  about  liberty  of  conscience 
and  separation  of  tlic  state  from  the  C  /inrch,  it  takes  ad- 
vantage to  weaken  the  bonds  of  religion,  to  accredit  indif- 
ferentism,  and  to  please  the  heretic  and  the  unbeliever 
by  a  fashion  of  marriage  suited  to  their  minds. 

"  Under  the  specious  and  lying  color  of  abuses  and  re- 
straints it  censures  the  venerated  rules  of  Christian  juris 
prudence,  the  wise  discipline  of  the  Church,  confirmed  by 
the  decrees  of  councils  and  by  the  uninterrupted  practice 
of  so  many  ages. 

"  Therefore  it  was  that  Pius  IX.,  writing  to  your  Ma- 
jesty on  this  projected  law,  concluded  his  letter  with  these 
memorable  words : 

"  '  ]\  <•  isrotc  to  your  Majesty  tJiat  the  law  is  not  Catholic; 


CONSEQUENCES  OF  AN  ANTI-CHRISTIAN  LA  W. 

and  if  the  law  is  not  CatJiolic,  the  clergy  are  obliged  to  tell  tlic 
people  so,  even  at  the  risk  of  incurring  the  tJireatcncd  penal- 
ties. Your  Majesty,  we  also  speak  to  yon  in  tlie  name  of 
Clirist  Jesns,  whose  Vicar  we  are,  how  unworthy  soever  ;  and 
we  say  to  you  in  His  Name,  Do  not  sanction  this  law,  ^v^lich  is 
pregnant  with  a  thousand  disorders.  .  .  .  We  give  ourselves 
up  willingly  to  the  hope  of  seeing  you  support  the  rights  of  the 
Church,  protect  her  ministers,  and  free  her  people  from  the 
peril  of  being  subjected  to  certain  laws  whicJi  bear  on  their 
face  the  decay  of  religion^  and  of  the  morality  of  nations.  ..." 

"  As  to  the  consequences  of  this  law,  .  .  .  cases  of  legal 
concubinage  frequently  come  to  our  notice,  to  our  grief 
and  the  ruin  of  souls.  And  it  is  supremely  painful  to  re- 
flect that  the  more  easily  such  things  happen,  the  more 
difficult  is  it  to  repair  the  evil,  on  account  of  the  condition 
of  state  bondage  and  interdiction  to  which  the  priestly 
ministry  is  condemned  in  our  day.  For  it  is  the  law  itself 
which  frequently  causes  and  authorizes  such  things.  .  .  . 

"  Have  we  not  seen  the  abuse  and  prevarication  of  legal 
might  carried  to  the  point  of  compelling  the  parish  priests, 
under  threat  of  fine  and  imprisonment,  to  bestow  their 
sacred  offices  in  giving  the  sacramental  consecration  to  the 
marriage  immediately  after  the  civil  ceremony,  without 
taking  any  account  whatever  of  the  forms  and  discipline 
of  the  Church? 

"  Have  we  not  seen  the  officials  use  a  studious  or  in- 
considerate precipitancy  in  admitting  parties  to  the  civil 
ceremony,  and  then,  having  discovered  thereafter  impedi- 
ments which  nullified  the  contract,  have  they  not  displayed 
a  careless  connivance  in  tolerating  that  the  incestuous 
couples,  so  ill-united  even  with  respect  to  the  civil  act, 
should  continue  together  in  their  unlawful  intercourse? 

"  Have  we  not  also  seen  attempts  made  to  subject  the 
administration  of  the  sacraments  and  the  direction  of  men's 
consciences  to  the  official  censure  and  the  dictation  of 
the  state  ? 

"  These  are  dreadful  facts,  of  which  I  speak  of  my  own 
certain  knowledge ! 


228  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

"  Assuredly  a  law  of  this  kind,  and  bearing  such  per- 
nicious fruits,  is  not  a  Catholic  law.  The  natural  dictates 
of  moral  honesty  are  offended  by  it ;  and,  in  the  long  run, 
it  must  end  in  degrading  Christian  society  and  cause  that 
'religious  and  moral  decadence'  which  our  enlightened 
Pontiff  deplored  in  predicting  it  to  your  Majesty.  .  .  . 

"  If  this  law,  therefore,  which  is  so  manifestly  anti-Ca- 
tholic, comes  to  be  promulgated  in  your  royal  name,  and 
by  a  governor  sent  by  royal  ordinance  to  rule  these  Pontifi- 
cal provinces,  the  Catholic  hierarchy,  has  an  evident  right 
to  expect  that  your  Majesty  will  apply  a  remedy  to  the 
grievance,  and  to  press  you  to  repair  it. 

"...  There  is  only  question  here  to  insist  on  the  ob- 
servance of  the  rule  that  a  delegate  is  inferior  to  the  power 
which  delegates  him,  and  that  all  acts  are  void  of  juridical 
validity  which  the  delegator  had  neither  the  right  nor  the 
intention  to  perform  or  to  commission  his  subordinate 
to  do. 

"  Let  your  Majesty  do  this  act  of  justice  to  the  Catho- 
lic religion,  the  only  true  religion,  the  only  one  acknow- 
ledged as  such,  and  the  only  one  professed  in  all  Italy. 
Have  Christian  marriage  restored  speedily  to  its  religious 
liberty  and  its  superhuman  grandeur.  Let  the  annoying 
exceptions  cease  which  are  so  grievous  a  burden  to  the 
conscience  of  our  people,  and  suppress  that  heterodox  in- 
novation which,  by  desecrating  an  august  sacrament,  viti- 
ates in  their  principle  the  domestic  and  social  relations,  and 
is  a  great  danger  to  the  purity  of  faith  and  morals."  * 

To  this  eloquent  appeal  we  do  not  fear  to  add  the  con- 
clusion of  the  united  Remonstrance  of  the  archbishops 
and  bishops  of  Umbria,  also  the  work  of  the  same  well-in- 
spired hand.  Statesmen  and  churchmen  in  America,  warn- 
ed by  the  fatal  facilities  of  our  divorce  laws,  will  do  well 
to  read  and  ponder  these  pregnant  considerations: 

"After  these  considerations  our  conscience  cannot  rest 
satisfied,  nor  can  the  zeal  which  we  are  bound  to  cherish 

*  "  Sceltu  "  etc.,  pp.  470-78,  Sept.  27,  1861. 


A  GOLDEN  LESSON  FOR  AMERICANS.  229 

for  the  Catholic  cause  and  for  the  well-being  of  Christianity 
in  our  midst,  if  we  did  not  make  our  words,  with  evangeli- 
cal freedom,  reach  the  ears  of  those  who  have  bestowed 
their  labors  in  this  reform,  or  who  are  to  give  it  their  care 
and  support.  It  is  still  but  a  project.  God  grant  that  the 
truth,  shining  forth  in  its  full  light,  may  penetrate  and  con- 
vince every  mind  before  such  reform  is  sanctioned  ! 

"  We  say,  therefore  : 

"A  civil  reform  regarding  marriage  which  takes  on 
itself,  as  does  the  present  project,  to  regulate  the  validity 
of  matrimony  in  a  manner  quite  independent  of  and  differ- 
ing from  the  dictates  of  religion,  necessarily  involves  a  vio- 
lation of  Catholic  dogma,  an  oppression  of  the  Catholic 
conscience. 

"  The  sanctity  [I'onestX]  and  force  of  the  conjugal  tie,  in 
the  estimation  of  Christians,  are  based  on  the  law  of  nature 
and  that  of  the  Gospel,  not  on  the  formulas  of  the  civil 
law.  This  is  a  truth  of  the  divine,  the  absolute  order,  from 
which  the  Church  can  never  depart ;  and  the  conscience  of 
a  Catholic  people  can  never  be  convinced  of  the  contrary. 
It  is  not  a  matter  of  discipline,  about  which  transactions 
might  be  made,  or  a  question  of  form,  about  which  one 
may  lawfully  disagree. 

"  Under  the  pretext  of  claiming  its  own  rights  (rivcndi- 
cazione)  the  state  in  our  day  is  compelled  to  repudiate  this 
dogmatic  principle,  to  turn  its  back  on  its  own  traditions, 
and  to  violate  the  consciences  of  its  subjects. 

"  Can  a  reform  of  this  character  ever  be  reconciled  with 
the  profession  of  the  Catholic  faith,  of  which  the  whole  na- 
tion is  so  proud  ?  Can  a  wise  policy  ever  consent  to  ac- 
cept an  institution  so  hostile  to  the  dominant  religion 
and  to  the  prevailing  belief — an  institution  which,  discussed 
formerly  in  the  Piedmontese  Chambers,  had  there  so  un- 
happy an  issue,  and  which  elsewhere  turned  out  to  be  a 
source  of  miserable  troubles,  contentions,  and  corruption? 

"  The  state  has  its  own  duties  with  regard  to  marriage, 
but  these  only  concern  the  external  bearings  of  marriage 
connecting  it  with  the  civil  society.  The  Church  does  not 


230  LIFE  OF  LEO  XI IT. 

pretend  to  an  exclusive  fulness  of  jurisdiction,  confining 
her  claim  to  what  God  has  committed  to  her  as  her  inde- 
feasible right  in  her  nature  as  the  minister  of  His  religion 
and  the  ruler  of  man  in  his  relations  with  the  Godhead — 
that  is,  the  validity  of  the  marriage  tie,  which  belongs  to 
the  spiritual  and  divine  order. 

"...  Does  the  state  wish  to  co-operate  in  preserving 
from  the  abuses  of  individual  licentiousness  the  purity 
or  legitimacy  of  marriage?  There  is  a  way  of  doin^r  so 
without  invading  others'  rights.  Let  it  combine  with  the 
Church  that  precious  and  sadly  needed  harmony  of  action 
which  arranges  and  secures  so  admirably  the  social  and 
religious  interests  of  a  nation  ;  let  it  show  itself  to  be  an 
ally,  not  an  arbitrary  master ;  let  it  accept  and  sanction  the 
sacred  laws  of  the  Church,  impose  their  observance  on  its 
subjects,  even  in  externals,  and  it  will  thus  infallibly  attain 
its  true  purpose.  .  .  . 

"  But  let  the  state  beware,  and  we  beg  it  to  beware,  of 
putting  thorns  and  fetters  on  the  Catholic  conscience,  and 
of  putting  itself  as  a  teacher  in  the  place  of  the  Church, 
the  divine  and  only  guide  from  whom  Catholics  obtain  the 
rules  of  morality  and  justice."  * 

The  Archbishop  of  Perugia  could  not,  in  the  perils 
which  daily  and  hourly  grew  around  the  Christian  homes 
of  Umbria,  rest  satisfied  with  demonstrating  to  the  civil 
authorities  the  enormity  of  the  evil  they  were  committing; 
he  made  his  voice  heard  in  every  one  of  these  homes,  in- 
structing them  on  these  dangers  and  their  own  Christian 
duties. 

III.  CARDINAL  PECCI  ENLIGHTENING  CHRISTIAN  IIOM1  S 
«  AND  FORMING  CHRISTIAN  HEARTS. 

In  1864  Cardinal  Pecci,  who  had  been  the  soul  and  the 
mouthpiece  of  the  episcopate  of  Central  Italy  during  the 
calamitous  years  which  followed  1860,  issued  in  the  form 

*June,  1861.  "Sul  Progi'tto  dl  Matrimonio  Civile,  esaminato  nell*  in- 
leresse  religiose.  Dichiarazione,  Sceltat  pp.  308-342. 


TftE  CARDINAL  ENLlGHlENlNG  CHRISTIAN  HOMES.  2  1 1 

o 

of  his  usual  Lenten  pastoral  a  most  remarkable,  pregnant, 
instructive,  and  eloquent  work,  worthy  of  a  great  and 
zealous  bishop.  It  bears  for  title  "  On  the  Current  Errors 
against  Religion  and  Christian  Life." 

The  works  of  mind,  and  more  especially  so  those  which 
treat  of  the  dearest  religious  interests  of  mankind,  are  like 
the  rare  and  most  precious  gems  which  have  their  value  in 
every  civilized  clime  and  win  the  admiration  of  all  true 
men.  From  this  production  of  the  Cardinal  Archbishop  of 
Perugia  we  detach  a  few  passages,  which  our  readers  will 
prize  as  they  would  the  most  beautiful  pearls  of  Coroman 
del  taken  from  a  full  casket  and  held  up  to  them  to  ex- 
amine. Here  is  the  preamble: 

"  The  priceless  treasure  of  a  frank  profession  of  Catho- 
lic faith  is  a  thing  too  much  to  be  envied  and  hidden  away 
out  of  sight,  in  our  days,  that  we  should  not  guard  it  jeal- 
ously against  the  traps  and  plots  which  are  laid  to  steal 
it  from  us.  ...  To  a  people  like  you,  who  had  the  fortune 
to  be  born  Catholics,  and  who  have  ever  had  it  at  heart  to 
remain  so,  the  free  and  loving  voice  of  your  pastor  must 
surely  be  grateful  when  it  is  raised  to  warn  you  of  the  dan- 
gers which  your  religion  runs,  and  to  point  out  to  you  the 
ready  means  to  avert  them. 

"  There  is  no  need  that  we  should  spend  many  words  to 
prove  to  you  the  existence  and  the  magnitude  of  these 
dangers,  and  the  unceasing  labors  bestowed  to  implant 
even  among  you  unbelief  and  heresy.  The  designs  and 
proceedings  of  the  propagators  of  irreligion  are  quite  well 
known  to  you.  They  profit  by  the  present  conditions  of 
our  country  to  make  war  on  the  Catholic  faith ;  they  en- 
deavor to  pervert  radically  its  principles,  and  to  upset  all 
the  practices  of  Christian  life.  .  .  . 

"  See  how  these  men  would  have  you  throw  off  from 
your  minds  all  the  dictates  of  faith,  all  bonds  of  subjection 
to  God.  They  go  about  writing  and  proclaiming  aloud  : 

" '  Man  is  free  in  his  own  conscience  ;  he  can  embrace 
any  religion  he  likes.  Natural  religion,  that  which  reason 
dictates  to  each  of  us,  is  all  that  we  want  ;  we  do  not 


232  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

need  either  revelation  or  mysteries.  Religion  is  a  purely 
internal  act ;  it  should  exist  in  the  heart  and  confine  itself 
to  the  sphere  of  our  spirit.  It  is  quite  enough  for  a  man 
to  behave  himself  like  one  who  is  honest  and  honored 
among  his  fellow-men  ;  as  to  religion,  he  can  square  his 
actions  on  his  belief.  Religion  does  not  enter  into  the 
sphere  of  external  conduct  or  into  the  social  order;  the 
interests  of  our  spiritual  being  should  be  entirely  separate 
from  those  of  our  corporeal  being.' 

"  These  theories  are  widely  taught  even  among  us,  and, 
let  us  confess  it,  they  not  infrequently  meet  with  favor 
and  welcome.  Thank  God  if  the  number  be  small  indeed 
who  renounce,  to  embrace  them,  their  Catholic  profession ! 
Nevertheless  there  are  numbers  of  the  hesitating  and  the 
deceived  who,  thinking  these  theories  to  be  comfortable 
and  plausible,  caress  them  in  practice,  give  them  their  as- 
sent, and,  without  perceiving  it,  live  according  to  them. 
Hence  ...  a  mortal  indifferentism  in  matters  of  religion, 
a  blind  neglect  and  contempt  of  all  that  concerns  the  soul 
and  regards  the  life  to  come.  .  .  ." 

Taking  up  in  succession  each  of  these  capital  errors,  the 
Cardinal  refutes  them  in  a  masterly  way : 

"  To  all  who  speak  to  you  of  '  liberty  of  conscience '  say 
that  without  God  there  is  no  liberty.  He  made  man  free 
and  gifted  with  reason,  but  in  so  doing  He  imposed  on  His 
creature  obligations  and  dictated  laws  for  him,  in  order  to 
prevent  that  native  liberty  and  reason  from  leading  him 
astray.  Among  these  obligations,  among  these  laws,  stand 
first  those  that  pertain  to  religion — namely,  the  worship 
and  obedience  which  are  due  to  God  as  the  Supreme 
Author  and  Repairer  of  human  nature.  He  has  Himself 
determined  and  made  known  to  us  in  what  manner  we 
are  thus  to  honor  and  serve  Him.  Nor  is  it  left  to  the 
free  will  of  man  to  refuse  it,  or  to  fashion  for  himself  a 
form  of  worship  and  service  such  as  he  pleases  to  render. 
That  worship,  that  religion  alone  is  true,  is  good,  which 
God  Himself  has  manifestly  willed  us  to  practice.  After 
that  it  would  be  not  only  impious  but  monstrous  to  main- 


PASTORAL  ON  CURRENT  ERRORS. 


233 


tain  every  form  of  worship  is  acceptable  and  indifferent, 
that  the  human  conscience  is  free  to  adopt  whichever  form 
it  pleases  and  to  fashion  out  a  religion  to  suit  itself. 

"  What !  are  they  then  things  indifferent,  dependent  on 
our  choice  and  good  pleasure,  these  matters  which  we  call 
truth  and  error,  the  divine  glory,  and  God's  dishonor  ? 

"  What !  can  it  then  be  a  matter  of  indifference  to  man 
to  know  God  or  to  ignore  Him,  to  revere  Him  or  to  wor- 
ship His  creatures,  to  serve  Him,  as  He  bids  us,  or  to  re- 
fuse His  service?  ..." 

Every  one  of  the  effata  of  irreligion  or  scepticism  is 
then  made  the  heading  of  each  successive  section  of  this 
noble  treatise,  and  utterly  confuted.  For  instance : 

"  The  religion  of  the  heart  is  enough  for  man. — Remark,  I 
pray  you,  that  this  false  axiom  which  cloaks  the  shame  of 
the  unbeliever  serves  also  to  the  cowardly  Catholic  as  a  pre- 
text for  sacrificing  the  duties  of  his  religion  to  the  idol  of 
human  respect.  God  deserves  and  demands  that  man's 
whole  being  shall  confess,  worship  and  serve  Him,  the  Crea- 
tor. This  cannot  be  accomplished  by  the  heart  alone,  and 
by  mere  interior  acts  which  remain  concealed  in  the  depths 
of  the  human  soul.  .  .  . 

"  The  new  law  of  the  Gospel,  while  teaching  us  to  wor- 
ship God  in  a  manner  more  perfect  and  more  worthy  of 
Him,  'in  spirit  and  in  truth,'  also  establishes  and  com- 
mands special  external  observances — sacrifice,  the  sacra- 
ments, prayer — not  only  as  means  of  personal  sanctifica- 
tion,  but  as  a  solemn  expression  of  religious  worship. 

"  Besides,  honor  is  due  to  God,  not  merely  as  He  is  the 
Creator  of  individual  man,  but  as  He  is  also  the  Author 
and  Ruler  of  the  human  race  as  a  whole.  For  if  man  in 
his  individual  capacity  derives  from  Him  as  from  the  First 
Cause,  is  sustained  by  His  providence  and  directed  by 
Him  toward  his  proper  destiny,  even  so  is  every  human 
society. 

"  So  deeply  rooted  in  the  universal  sentiment  and  con- 
viction of  mankind  is  the  obligation  of  an  outward  and 
public  manifestation  of  such  worship,  and  the  persuasion 


234  LIFE  of  LEO  xni. 

as  well  that  no  society  can  subsist  without  religion,  that 
no  people,  how  barbarous  or  degraded  soever,  has  existed 
who  did  not  confess  this  debt  to  the  Godhead  by  erecting 
temples,  instituting  feasts,  offering  sacrifices,  and  decreeing 
honors." 

In  the  same  lucid  and  convincing  way  does  he  dispose 
of  the  next  axiom,  that  "  It  is  religion  enough  to  behave 
well  and  to  do  good  to  others."  And  so  on  to  the  end  of 
this  chain  of  capital  errors. 

"  We  have  until  now,"  he  continues,  "  discoursed  to 
you  of  the  principal  errors  which  are  propagated  against 
our  holy  religion.  .  .  .  Now  we  feel  ourselves  impelled  to 
place  beneath  your  eyes  the  principal  points  on  which  is 
remarked  in  our  day  the  decay  of  Christian  morality.  .  .  ." 

"Blasphemy"  comes  in  the  first  place.  It  is  treated 
with  brief  and  masterly  eloquence.  Then  the  "  Profana- 
tion of  the  Sunday  and  Feasts  of  Obligation,"  "  Public 
Immorality,"  "  Bad  Books,"  and  "  Defective  Education." 

This  last  section  deserves  more  than  a  passing  men- 
tion : 

"  We  should  have  too  much  to  say  on  this  subject,  on 
which  depend  the  direction  and  welfare  of  the  present  and 
of  the  coming  generation.  We  need  not  lose  time  in  prov- 
ing the  obligation  and  the  importance  for  parents  to  edu- 
cate their  children  well  ;  the  voice  of  nature,  the  precepts 
of  religion,  and  the  sense  of  all  mankind  agree  in  affirming 
and  inculcating  this  duty. 

"  Still,  to  confess  the  truth,  who  is  it  that  docs  not  per- 
ceive and  deplore  the  neglect  and  falling-off  in  the  dis- 
charge of  this  duty  which  are  evident  in  many  Catholic 
families  at  this  time,  and  that  does  not  thence  draw  sad 
auguries  for  our  future?  Unwise  and  lazy  parents  do  not 
know  how  to  estimate  the  nobleness  of  the  mission  en 
trusted  to  them.  They  generally  measure  according  to 
the  calculations  of  a  low  and  selfish  interest  the  blessing  of 
having  children  ;  they  do  not  at  all  think  of  the  great  debt 
which  they  contract  toward  God,  from  the  first  day  they 
become  parents,  to  incr^.e  in  their  offspring  and  to  con- 


PARENTAL  DUTY  OF  EDUCA  TING  CHILDREN.       235 

tinue  the  number  of  His  true  adorers;  of  that  which  they 
contract  toward  themselves  to  prepare  and  transmit  an 
honored  inheritance  of  good  example  and  virtues ;  of  the 
debt  contracted  toward  society  to  rear  for  it  members  la- 
borious, moral,  and  edifying. 

"  It  is  true  that  in  our  day  another  maxim  is  current 
bearing  on  this  same  subject — namely,  '  To  the  state  belongs 
the  training  of  youth.'  Does  this  maxim  avail  to  excuse 
the  lamentable  negligence  of  parents  in  our  time? 

"  The  duty  of  education,  inculcated  by  natural  reason, 
is  so  essential  to  the  parental  character  and  authority 
that  they  cannot  decline  its  performance.  The  state  au- 
thority, by  its  place  in  the  order  of  things,  is  not  called 
upon  to  discharge  this  great  parental  duty,  but  to  help 
the  natural  educators  in  their  work,  and  to  watch  and 
protect  the  interior  discipline  and  good  direction  of  the 
family. 

"  What  are,  in  reality,  the  relations  in  which  man  is 
placed  from  his  birth,  as  one  of  the  beings  in  the  order  of 
creation?  He  comes  into  the  world  as  God's  creature,  who 
has  brought  him  into  existence  ;  he  is  the  child  of  those 
who  have  given  him  temporal  life ;  he  is  ordained  first 
toward  religion  and  then  toward  his  family  ;  his  first  duties 
are  subjection  and  service  to  God,  and  dependence  on  his 
parents.  The  family  is  neither  the  creation  nor  the  emana- 
tion of  civil  society  (or  the  state) ;  the  power  of  parents  is 
not  a  concession  of  human  law.  The  relations  and  duties 
which  obtain  between  parents  and  children  are  anterior  and 
superior  to  all  human  aggregation. 

"  Man  is  indeed  born  sociable  ;  but  belonging,  before 
all,  to  the  domestic  and  religious  society,  he  only  comes 
into  the  society  of  the  state  through  the  family  and  already 
prepared  by  the  teaching  of  religion  and  under  the  guid- 
ance of  parental  authority.  Therefore  is  it  that  as  in  the 
matter  of  education  only  an  auxiliary  part  can  be  attri- 
buted to  the  state  authority,  so  is  it  evident  that  the  charge 
of  educating  remains  as  a  burden  they  cannot  decline  on 
the  conscience  of  the  parents,  who  for  that  work  are  the 


236  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

representatives  of  God  the  Creator,  and  are  invested  with 
His  authority. 

"  If  in  our  days  all  parents  understood  their  duties  in 
this  light,  and  if,  conceiving  an  adequate  notion  of  the 
work  they  are  commissioned  to  do,  they  instructed  their 
children  in  time  on  the  elevated  duties  and  relations  which 
every  human  being  has  to  fulfil  both  in  the  domestic  and 
the  religious  society,  assuredly  the  state  would  be  much 
the  better  for  it.  For  no  one  can  doubt  that  children  who 
are  submissive  to  parental  authority  and  devoted  to  their 
family,  that  men  who  have  the  fear  of  God  and  who  are 
obedient  to  their  religion,  cannot  fail  to  be  also  honored 
citizens  and  serviceable  to  their  fellow-men." 

Then  comes  up  the  question  of  colorless  or  undenomi- 
national education,  which  so  many  parents  are  satisfied 
with.  Cardinal  Pecci's  luminous  explanation  leaves  here 
no  room  for  hesitation: 

"You  must  distinguish  between  'education'  and  'in- 
struction] between  the  moral  training  and  moulding  of  the 
heart  and  the  simple  cultivating  of  the  intellect.  Instruc- 
tion, as  such,  ordinarily  consists  in  filling  the  minds  of  the 
young  with  a  furniture  of  knowledge  that  can  help  them, 
according  to  their  years,  to  turn  to  a  useful  account  their 
intellectual  and  bodily  powers. 

"  The  moral  training,  on  the  contrary,  should  be  a 
foundation  for  the  development  and  the  application  of 
the  great  principles  of  morality  "and  religion  as  bearing 
on  men's  conduct  within  the  family  and  in  the  social 
sphere. 

"  Scientific  instruction  will  give  you  learned  and  clever 
young  men  and  women  ;  religious  education  will  give  you, 
on  the  contrary,  honest  and  virtuous  citizens.  Instruction, 
separated  from  education  properly  so  called,  serves  rather 
to  fill  young  hearts  with  vanity  than  to  discipline  them 
aright.  It  is  quite  otherwise  with  a  right  education  ;  such 
a  training,  under  the  guidance  of  religion,  which  is  the 
regulator  of  the  heart  of  man  and  the  inspirer  of  pure  and 
generous  affections,  knows  how  to  implant  and  to  cultivate 


LUMINOUS  EXPLANA  TION  OF  TRUE  EDUCA  TION.   2  -7 

3  i 

virtue  in  the  most  illiterate  souls  without  the  aid  of  much 
scientific  polishing  or  instruction. 

"...  Then,  again,  and  to  speak  the  truth,  do  parents 
pay  attention  to  the  nature,  the  solidity  of  the  instruction 
given  to  their  children  ?  Do  they  see  to  it  that  it  is  sound, 
useful,  well  ordered,  and  fit  to  prepare  and  help  an  educa- 
tion such  as  is  fit  for  Christian  children  and  members  of  a 
Catholic  community ;  that  those  who  give  such  instruc- 
tion have  the  necessary  gifts  of  religious  conviction,  of  vir- 
tue, of  learning,  such  as  may  win  them  the  respect  and  obe 
dience  of  their  pupils  ;  that,  above  all,  the  study  of  re- 
ligion, so  essential  to  the  education  and  the  virtuous  life  of 
young  people,  should  hold  the  foremost  place  among  all 
other  studies,  should  have  a  proper  and  adequate  develop- 
ment, and  be  carried  on  under  the  direction  of  the  Church, 
the  depositary  and  teacher  of  religious  doctrines? 

"  You  see,  therefore,  that  in  this  respect  alone  there 
cannot  be  (in  a  neutral  school)  a  sufficient  guarantee  for  a 
right  and  complete  education,  nor  any  relief  for  parents  of 
the  great  burden  on  their  conscience." 

Coming  to  the  current  sayings  in  our  day,  "  that  both 
instruction  and  education  should  be  in  harmony  with  the 
age  and  free  from  prejudices"  the  Cardinal  increases  in  vig- 
orous remonstrance : 

"  Have  you  ever  understood  the  real  significance  of 
these  words,  which  are  too  often  heard  from  the  lips  of 
some  unwary  parent,  as  well  as  from  those  of  self-esteemed 
educators  ?  No  one  denies  that  all  the  arts  advance  with 
time,  and  on  all  methods  of  human  education  a  new  light 
is  cast  by  experience  and  a  new  increase  obtained.  Nor 
would  the  modernizing  processes  we  hear  people  talk  of 
meet  with  any  opposition  when  they  only  affect  the  form, 
when  they  are  really  beneficial,  and  do  not  affect  injuri- 
ously either  Christian  principles  or  Christian  duties. 

"  These  men,  however,  have  in  view  a  far  different  con- 
ception and  purpose.  Instruction  and  education,  void  of 
prejudices,  in  the  language  of  the  day,  mean  simply  that 
they  should  be  such  as  to  befit  promiscuously  families  of 


238  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

all  shades  of  religious  faith,  worshipping  at  the  altars  of 
every  creed,  whether  the  creeds  be  those  of  Protestantism 
or  that  of  the  Hebrew.  It  is  an  education  devoid  of  all  the 
external  practices  and  duties  of  the  Christian  faith,  and 
calculated  to  familiarize  young  people  with  '  freedom  of 
conscience '  and  indifferentism.  It  is  such  as  to  accustom 
themselves  to  make  such  compromises  as  are  incompatible 
with  the  immutability  of  Catholic  dogma  and  Gospel  mo- 
rality each  time  that  such  compromises  seem  demanded  by 
what  people  call '  social  exigencies,'  and  civilization,  and  the 
superiority  of  the  age,  and  such  worldly  considerations.  It 
is,  in  fine,  such  as  to  make  a  man  live  a  gay  life  in  this 
world,  as  if  here  were  for  him  the  end  of  all  and  his  own 
supreme  destiny. 

"And  although  this  system  of  education  does  not  openly 
exclude  every  religious  element,  such  as  it  contains  is  so 
superficial  and  diluted  that  it  is  anything  but  fit  to  fill 
the  souls  of  the  young  with  a  perfect  knowledge,  a  true 
love,  an  exact  practice,  a  hearty  profession  of  the  Catholic 
faith  to  which  they  belong. 

"  There  is  another  great  evil  resulting  from  this,  as  they 
call  it,  impartial  or  unprejudiced  education.  Do  you  know 
what  it  is?  It  is  to  take  no  account  of  the  powerful  in- 
fluence of  the  examples  of  the  home-circle,  and  to  afford 
the  children  of  the  household  all  facilities  for  finding  them- 
selves, from  their  early  years,  in  the  midst  of  the  most  pow- 
erful seductions  of  worldly  society. 

"  No!  it  is  not  a  prejudice,  but  an  undeniable  truth,  con- 
tinually demonstrated  by  the  experience  of  every  day,  that 
the  school  of  example  has  more  power  to  form  the  minds 
of  the  young  than  mere  oral  teaching.  Nay,  frequently 
what  causes  the  failure  of  an  education  well  wrought  out 
by  the  zealous  pastor  and  the  skilful  schoolmaster  are  the 
evil  examples  given  at  home. 

"It  is  no  prejudice,  but  a  most  pressing  duty  and  an 
earnest  of  true  fatherly  love,  which  guards  the  young 
against  the  dangers  and  snares  with  which  the  road  of 
worldlings  is  sown — against  licentious  conversations,  pcsti- 


THE    YOUA'G  SHOULD  BE  GUARDED. 

lential  books,  obscene  spectacles,  evil  companions,  perfidi- 
ous friendships,  and  dark  associations.  It  is  rather  la- 
mentable blindness  and  inexcusable  folly  on  the  part  of 
parents  to  pretend  to  accustom  their  children  for  a  while 
to  the  ways  of  the  world,  to  make  them  know  everything, 
open  the  way  to  the  gratification  of  every  passion,  allow- 
ing their  dear  ones  to  be  their  own  masters,  exposing 
them  to  every  temptation,  in  which  their  innocence  re- 
ceives wounds  which  no  time  can  cure."  * 


CHAPTER    XVI. 

CARDINAL  PECCI  BATTLING  FOR  HIS  CLERGY. — I.  CON- 
TENDING FOR  THE  SACRKI)  RIGHTS  AND  LIBERTIES 
OF  THE  SECULAR  PRIESTHOOD. 

IT  is  not  to  be  denied  that  among  the  very  worst  ene- 
mies of  religion  in  Italy  from  1846  to  1886  were  some 
of  her  own  ministers.  Among  these  may  have  been  men 
of  unimpeachable  moral  conduct,  who,  carried  away  by  the 
powerful  current  of  ideas  and  sentiments  running  resist- 
lessly  in  favor  of  Italian  nationality,  independence,  and 
unity,  and  with  wilful  blindness  deemed  the  established 
religion  an  obstacle  and  an  enemy,  and  combated  it  with 
all  their  might.  If  such  pure  patriots  could  be  counted 
in  the  ranks  of  the  Revolutionists  we  certainly  know  them 
not. 

Others  there  were,  on  the  contrary,  who,  finding  the 
obligations  of  their  priestly  vows  an  intolerable  yoke,  cast 
it  off  and  sought  liberty  in  the  profession  of  creeds  in 
which  they  did  not  believe.  We  know  how  bitter  is  the 
hatred  of  such  men  for  the  faith  they  have  abjured,  and  to 
what  extremes  they  will  go  to  satisfy  it. 

Others  again — and  the  names  of  many  such  have  acquir- 
ed a  European  and  even  an  American  notoriety — had  been, 
while  still  within  the  pale  of  the  Catholic  Church  and 
holding  a  position  in  her  ministry,  found  guilty  of  various 
crimes,  sometimes  of  public  notoriety,  of  the  most  scan- 
dalous nature,  and  punished  for  the  same.  Punished  again 
and  again,  and  at  last  excommunicated,  suspended,  inter- 
dicted, these  men  found  a  refuge  in  Piedmont,  or  in  Eng- 
land, or  the  United  States,  justifying  the  crimes  which 
they  did  not  and  could  not  deny  by  accusing  the  Church 
which  had  cast  them  out.  We  need  only  recall  to  the 
reader  the  terrible  indictment  of  Cardinal  Newman  drawn 


THE  WORST  ENEMIES  OF  RELIGION.  24! 

up  against  this  class  of  reprobates  in  the  person  of  one  of 
their  cleverest  and  most  notorious  representatives. 

The  old,  popular,  inveterate  prejudices  against  the 
Church  of  Rome,  her  pretended  "  errors  and  corruptions," 
the  perpetual  war-cry  of  the  most  fanatical  and  least  en- 
lightened sectarians  against  the  Pope  as  "  the  Man  of  Sin," 
against  the  Papacy  as  "  the  Kingdom  of  Satan,"  were  too 
wide-spread  on  both  sides  of  the  Atlantic  forty  years  ago, 
and  are  too  prevalent  even  at  this  day,  not  to  find  a  ready 
echo  in  the  pulpit,  the  press,  and  the  interested  portions 
of  the  religious  community.  We  know  how  these  men 
were  received,  petted,  lionized,  set  up  as  glorious  con- 
quests of  the  Gospel  truth  over  the  corruptions  of  Popery, 
and  listened  to  as  eagerly  by  gaping  church-audiences  and 
packed  lecture-halls  as  if  every  one  of  them  was  a  Luther 
sent  down  expressly  from  heaven  to  help  demolish  utterly 
Papal  Rome  and  to  free  Italy  and  the  world  from  the  in- 
cubus of  that  grand  system  of  intellectual  domination — the 
Papacy. 

So  with  the  emissaries  of  the  secret  societies,  and  with 
the  bands  of  Garibaldi,  and  with  the  fleet  of  Persano  and 
the  armies  of  Fanti  and  Cialdini,  these  men  returned  to 
Italy,  to  the  Pontifical  States.  They  had — and  they  knew  it 
— many  like  themselves,  deposed,  degraded,  despised,  who 
had  remained  behind  in  city  and  country  place,  looking 
forward  to  the  coming  of  the  Revolution  as  to  the  dawn  of 
that  liberty  in  which  evil  should  be  good,  wrong  should  be 
right,  error  should  be  truth,  the  corrupt  heart  should  have 
its  full  satisfaction  ;  in  which  the  lawless  should  be  the 
lawgivers  and  judges,  and  the  disrobed  priest  should  be 
free  to  pick  up  the  mud  in  the  gutters  and  cast  it  in  the 
face  'of  bishop,  and  cardinal,  and  Pope. 

At  length  the  dawn  of  this  liberty  came  in  Central  Italy 
in  1859-60.  In  Piedmont  it  had  come  in  1848,  when  the 
famous  Siccardi  Laws,  inspired  by  these  unpriestly  and  un- 
hallowed refugees,  did  away,  as  a  first  step  toward  the  eman- 
cipation coveted,  with  the  ecclesiastical  courts  which  had 
tried  the  prevaricating  ministers  of  the  altar,  found  them 

16 


242  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

guilty,  punished  them,  and  branded  them  with  a  stigma  of 
indelible  infamy. 

As  they  did  in  Piedmont  in  1849,80  did  they  in  Umbria 
in  1860.  And  they  were  evidently  in  a  great  hurry  to  do 
it.  They  began  by  abolishing  the  ecclesiastical  courts  ;  by 
taking  away  from  the  Church  the  right  to  judge  her  own 
ministers,  and  for  notorious  prevarications  committed  in 
the  fulfilment  of  their  sacred  functions,  for  the  public  trans- 
gression of  laws  which  were  the  very  bulwark  of  priestly 
virtue,  the  guarantee  to  the  faithful  priest  of  the  reverence 
and  unbounded  confidence  of  the  people  to  whom  he  min- 
istered. 

There  were  so  many  of  these  "  returned  patriot  priests," 
as  they  called  themselves,  who  wanted  to  see  the  Church 
stripped  of  every  vestige  of  freedom,  of  authority,  and 
bound  hand  and  foot  by  the  new  political  power!  And 
then  there  were  so  many  others — at  least  it  was  hoped  so 
— in  Umbria  and  elsewhere  who  were  to  be  won  over  to 
the  new  order  of  things  by  being  made  independent  of 
episcopal  reprimand  or  control,  by  being  rewarded  for  the 
favor  they  had  shown  to  the  now  dominant  ideas ! 

Then  simultaneously  with  the  arbitrary  decree  abolishing 
ecclesiastical  courts  came  one  taking  away  from  churches 
and  all  ecclesiastical  edifices  their  sacred  character  and  all 
the  immunities  enjoyed  from  the  birth  of  Christianity  al- 
most. Then  again  was  fulminated,  with  the  same  hot 
haste,  another  edict  taking  away  from  the  ecclesiastical 
authorities  all  control  and  jurisdiction  over  establishments 
of  education  of  every  grade.  These  edicts  were  published 
respectively  on  the  25th  and  28th  of  September,  1860,  con- 
sequently within  less  than  two  weeks  after  the  first  Pied- 
montese  soldier  had  passed  the  frontiers  of  Umbria. 

Cardinal  Pecci,  who  had  reason  to  remember  the  san- 
guinary scenes  which  followed  the  needless  storming  and 
bombardment  of  Perugia,  as  well  as  the  brutal  discourtesy 
shown  to  himself  by  the  Piedmontese  generals,  was  not  to 
be  deterred  by  any  personal  considerations  from  doing  at 
once  what  he  thought  to  be  his  duty.  He  remembered  the 


EDUCATION,  CHARITY,  BENEFICENCE  SECULARIZED.    243 

long  imprisonment  and  exile  with  which  were  visited  on 
the  bishops  of  Piedmont  acts  such  as  that  he  was  now 
about  to  perform.  Yet  he  did  not  hesitate  an  instant. 

On  September  30  he  wrote  to  the  Royal  Commissary, 
who,  authorized  or  unauthorized,  had  taken  on  himself  thus 
to  overturn  by  a  stroke  of  the  pen  the  foundations  of  the 
religious  order  which  had  subsisted  for  so  many  ages. 

"  If  your  first  decree,"  he  says,  "  deprives  the  Church  of 
the  power  to  judge  her  own  ministers,  the  second  forbids 
her  in  a  great  measure  to  fulfil  her  mission  of  preaching 
truth  and  instructing  the  peoples.  This  is  a  mission  which 
she  has  received,  not  from  man,  but  from  God — a  mission 
which,  extending  to  all  the  nations  of  earth,  should  much 
the  more  fully  have  its  free  exercise  in  a  Catholic  com- 
munity through  the  instruction  of  youth. 

"  The  decree  admits  that  religion  is  inseparable  from  a 
'wise  instruction  and  education.  But  then  it  excludes  in  the 
most  absolute  manner  the  direction  and  superintendence  of 
the  religious  authority  from  the  institutions  in  which  youth 
is  instructed  and  educated,  and  substitutes  for  it  privately 
those  of  the  government. 

"  It  is  easy  to  measure  the  scope  and  consequences  of 
this  measure.  By  it  you  violate  the  constitutional  right 
of  the  Church ;  you  alter  the  solemn  agreements  which 
accompanied  the  erection  of  these  institutions ;  you  violate 
and  set  aside  the  last  will  and  testament  of  the  generous 
benefactors  who  founded  them  and  endowed  them  on  such 
formal  conditions ;  you  ignore  the  origin  of  these  founda- 
tions and  the  property  of  the  Church  in  those  which,  under 
her  direct  auspices  and  with  her  own  substance  and  means, 
she  called  into  existence. 

"  See  yourself,  sir,  if  I  have  not  good  reason  to  protest 
against  all  this,  and,  in  my  position  of  a  bishop  and  a  guar- 
dian of  the  sacred  interests  of  the  Church,  I  can  help  ex- 
pressing my  formal  reprobation  and  the  profound  pain 
these  measures  have  caused  me." 

No  steps  were  then  taken  to  arrest  or  imprison  the 
courageous  prelate.  He  felt,  no  doubt,  that  his  remon- 


244  UFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

strances  would  be  vain ;  nevertheless  he  thought  it  his 
duty  both  to  write  and  to  act.  He  was  not  one  to  make 
a  public  parade  of  his  opinions  and  sentiments  on  any  oc- 
casion. He  always  acted  for  a  purpose,  and  waited  until 
Providence,  to  whose  good  pleasure  he  solely  looked,  fur- 
nished him  the  fitting  opportunity.  Even  then  he  im- 
plored the  divine  help  as  fervently  as  if  all  depended  on 
the  lights  vouchsafed  to  him  from  on  high. 

He  was  busy  consulting  his  brother-prelates  and  con- 
sulted by  them,  counselling  with  his  priests  on  the  diffi- 
culties which  were  fast  gathering  around  them,  when,  in 
the  autumn,  another  fatal  blow  was  dealt  the  clergy  and 
Catholic  people  of  Umbria  by  the  suppression  and  disper- 
sion of  the  Monastic  Orders  of  men  and  women  and  the 
confiscation  of  their  property,  even  of  the  dower  which  the 
members  had  brought  with  them  into  their  respective  com- 
munities. In  Perugia,  from  its  first  occupation,  the  Pied- 
montese  troops  had  taken  possession  of  the  convents  and 
monasteries.  One  magnificent  establishment  in  particular, 
the  most  ancient  and  the  most  beautiful  of  all,  the  Benedic- 
tine monastery  and  church  of  San  Pietro  Cassinese,  was  hor- 
ribly ill  used  by  these  barbarians,  who,  under  the  cross  of 
Savoy  and  in  the  army  of  a  Catholic  king,  behaved  like  the 
Huns  of  Attila  or  Genseric's  Vandals,  and  defaced  the  ex- 
quisite frescoes  of  the  cloisters  and  refectory.  Even  Pro- 
testants who  since  then  visited  the  place  have  expressed 
their  reprobation  of  this  gratuitous,  purposeless,  and  wan- 
ton destruction. 

But  what  was  all  that  as  compared  with  the  wrong  done 
to  the  communities  themselves,  who  had  made  the  house 
of  God  so  glorious,  and  the  walks  and  community-rooms  in 
their  monastic  homes  an  image  of  the  everlasting  home  ? 

These  establishments  were  blessed  by  the  people,  for 
they  belonged  to  the  people,  who  found  there  at  all  times 
spiritual  counsel  and  aid,  and  in  seasons  of  distress  and  af- 
fliction help,  and  medicine,  and  food,  and  loving  words,  and 
kind  looks — doors  and  hearts  never  closed  to  the  voice  of 
the  needy. 


THE  RELIGIOUS  ORDERS  SUPPRESSED.  245 

But  it  was  the  secular  clergy  who  were  to  be,  in  one 
way,  the  greatest  sufferers.  The  regular  priests,  members  of 
these  Monastic  Orders,  were  their  ever-ready,  efficient,  and 
most  generous  helpmates  in  the  ministry  in  every  work  that 
regarded  the  sanctification  and  salvation  of  souls.  They 
had  made  the  holy  places  of  Umbria,  and  in  these  holy 
places  had  been  born,  and  had  grown,  ripened,  and  borne 
such  delicious  fruit,  all  that  is  fairest  and  best  in  Italian 
art,  literature,  and  science,  without  mentioning  that  sanc- 
tity of  life  which  left  its  fragrance  everywhere. 

Cardinal  Pecci,  with  a  heavy  heart,  but  with  his  soul  all 
aflame  with  righteous  indignation,  again  wrote  to  the  Royal 
Commissary,  who,  backed  by  the  anti-Catholic  spirit  which 
ruled  in  the  Piedmontese  Cabinet  and  Parliament,  set  at 
naught,  in  promulgating  and  executing  his  decree,  the  re- 
strictions and  limitations  imposed  by  the  king.  They  were 
merciful  dispositions  tempering  the  rigor  of  the  law  of  sup- 
pression. But  the  men  of  the  Revolution  knew  not  what 
mercy  or  moderation  was. 

"  The  decree  published  by  your  Royal  Commissariat," 
he  writes,  "...  suppressing  the  monastic  families  together 
with  many  other  institutions,  and  sequestrating  their  pro- 
perty, fills  up  to  overflowing  the  cup  of  bitterness  held  to 
the  lips  of  all  the  bishops  of  Umbria.  This  decree,  start- 
ing from  considerations  as  false  as  they  are  insulting  to  the 
clergy,  evidently  aims  at  wounding  religion  and  social  jus- 
tice itself. 

"  It  is  a  Catholic  maxim  that  it  appertains  solely  to  the 
supreme  authority  of  the  Church  to  found  and  approve  Re- 
ligious Orders  ;  nor,  independently  of  that  same  authority, 
may  any  temporal  power  order  even  their  partial  dissolu- 
tion or  suppression.  How  can  you  juridically  justify  the 
spoliation  and  confiscation  of  properties  already  sacred 
both  by  their  nature  and  destination,  the  right  to  possess 
which  and  the  inviolability  of  which  are  guaranteed  by  all 
natural  reason  and  positive  social  law  ? 

"  Then  this  spoliation  is  accomplished  in  the  name  of 
a  Catholic  government — of  a  government  which,  a  few  days 


246  LIFE  OF  LEO  XJIL 

before  *  this  decree,  had  been  obliged  to  acknowledge  and 
confess  in  an  official  act  that  the  ecclesiastical  nature  of  pro- 
perty does  not  in  any  way  weaken  the  right  of  possession. 

"  You  put  in  force  for  these  provinces  of  Umbria,  by 
an  exceptional  measure,  the  modern  Sardinian  legislation 
which  called  forth  the  censure  and  opposition  of  Catholic 
sentiment,  and  met  with  the  loudest  remonstrances  through- 
out the  Piedmontese  kingdom — a  legislation  afterward  for- 
mally condemned  by  the  Supreme  Head  of  our  religion  in 
his  consistorial  allocution  of  July  26,  1855.  And,  moreover,, 
these  laws  come  to  be  applied  here  with  a  harshness  and  a, 
sweeping  extension  all  the  greater  that  the  religious  corpo- 
rations suppressed  are  more  numerous,  and  that  the  poor 
religious  are  nowhere  allowed  to  remain  in  their  cloisters. 

"  Wherefore,  seeing  all  this,  Mr.  Commissary,  I  cannot 
refrain  from  complaining,  and  from  condemning  with  pas- 
toral liberty  the  decree  itself  in  all  its  parts."  f 

The  cruelty — not  harshness  merely,  but  wanton  cruelty 
— with  which  these  laws  of  suppression  were  enforced  have 
elicited  from  non-Catholic  writers  severe  and  just  animad- 
version. Not  all  Protestant  writers  nor  all  Protestant  edu- 
cated men  are  willing  to  condemn  as  useless  or  as  injurious 
to  society  these  wonderful  organizations  of  self-sacrificing 
and  devoted  men  who  were,  in  the  middle  ages,  the  great- 
est benefactors  of  European  society.  The  cruelty  with 
which  they  were  driven  out  in  Italy  from  the  desolate  and 
barren  mountain  solitudes  which  they  had  made  their 
abode  was  all  the  more  purposeless  that  the  government 
had  no  use  for  the  dwellings  which  they  left  behind. 

These  remote  monastic  houses  amid  the  barren  summits. 
of  the  Apennines  were  the  real  providence  of  the  country- 
folk far  and  near.  This  was  peculiarly  the  case  with  one 
monastery  in  Umbria,  the  Camaldolese  of  Monte  Corona.. 
The  Cardinal  Archbishop  of  Perugia,  in  his  indignation, 
again  appealed  to  the  king  against  the  extreme  rigor  of 

*  Note  of  Count  Cavour  to  the  Swiss  government  on  November  20, 
1860. 

f  "  Scelta,"  p.  464. 


248  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

his  commissary  in  Umbria,  who  seemed  to  have  but  little 
regard  for  the  royal  wishes. 

"  The  case,"  he  says,  "  which  now  happens  under  my 
eyes  touches  the  Hermit-Congregation  of  Cnmaldolese 
monks  situated  at  Monte  Corona.  These  virtuous  re- 
cluses, to  whom  an  illustrious  ancestor  of  your  Majesty, 
Charles  Emmanuel,  Duke  of  Savoy,  at  the  solicitation  of 
the  venerable  Father  Alexander  di  Ceva,  gave  an  honorable 
abode  in  his  states  about  the  close  of  1601,  are  now  made 
the  object  of  ignoble  and  rancorous  calumnies.  .  .  .  Dis- 
persed within  the  space  of  eight  days,  they  were  compelled 
to  tear  themselves  away  from  the  famous  sanctuary  which 
they  had  themselves  founded. 

"  Men  of  stainless  life,  of  unbounded  popularity  among 
our  country-folk,  whom  solitude,  silence,  and  prayer  per- 
petually separated  from  all  worldly  pursuits,  they  were  ac- 
cused of  mixing  themselves  up  with  politics  !  Men  whom 
the  world  never  saw  coming  down  from  the  lonely  peak  of 
their  inaccessible  mountain,  except  when  the  offices  of 
brotherly  charity  compelled  them  (and  whose  convent  was 
the  refuge  of  the  pilgrim,  the  infirm,  and  the  needy) — these 
were  held  up  as  persons  who  imperilled  the  interests  of  the 
nation  !  .  .  . 

"  If,  at  least,  they  had  been  allowed  the  time  and  facili- 
ty to  justify  themselves!  But  testimonies  in  their  favor, 
and  intercessions,  though  never  so  numerous,  availed  not  to 
clear  them.  Nor  were  the  members  of  the  municipal  coun- 
cils allowed  to  give  any  expression  to  their  opinion  in  their 
favor.  They  are  already  undergoing  the  hard  lot  to  which 
inexorable  fate  condemns  the.m  in  spite  of  the  temperate 
restrictions  of  your  royal  decree.  So  that,  in  the  era  of 
Italian  suppressions,  they  are  condemned  to  endure  the 
extremity  of  misfortune  from  which,  under  the  foreign 
domination  of  the  French,  by  an  honorable  exception,  was 
saved  the  sacred  Hermit-Monastery  of  Monte  Corona,  as 
our  history  testifies.  .  .  . 

"  Thus,  O  Sire,  every  temperate  precaution  taken  by 
your  Majesty  was  frustrated,  the  very  will  of  the  sovereign 


CARDINAL  PECCI'S  PROTESTS  UNAVAILING.         249 

was  defeated  by  the  disloyalty  with  which  the  law  was  exe- 
cuted. And  thus  the  fate  of  so  many  most  worthy  reli- 
gious persons  comes  to  be  decided  by  the  harsh  and  op- 
pressive measures  of  your  commissioners.  For  besides  the 
fact  that  this  oppression  has  not  been  so  exercised  in  the 
other  provinces,  these  measures  are  too  manifestly  in  op- 
position to  the  rights  of  religion  and  the  social  order. 

"...  In  denouncing  these  incidents  to  your  Majesty 
I  cannot  help  allowing  to  overflow,  in  words  of  lamenta- 
tion, the  bitter  grief  which  tortures  the  soul  of  a  bishop 
at  the  sight  of  the  repeated  shameful  outrages  committed 
against  the  venerable  rights  of  the  Church,  and  at  the 
pitiful  condition  to  which  the  interests  of  religion  are  daily 
brought  in  our  midst."  * 

All  these  eloquent  and  statesmanlike  documents  were 
only  the  echo  outside  the  Italian  Parliament  in  Turin  of 
the  admirable  and  exhaustive  speeches  delivered  there  by 
the  illustrious  Cesare  Cantu — speeches  which  would  have 
been  listened  to  with  respect  and  admiration  of  the  speaker 
at  Westminster  and  Washington,  but  which  produced  no 
effect  on  a  revolutionary  assembly  bent  on  blotting  out 
from  Italy  all  trace  of  past  legislation  and  institutions. 

Just  as  little  effect  had  Cardinal  Pecci's  letters  or  me- 
moirs on  the  mind  of  the  king.  Nevertheless  neither  he 
nor  his  brethren  in  the  episcopate  ceased  to  protest  and 
remonstrate.  No  less  than  nine  of  these  eloquent  remon- 
strances, made  in  his  own  name,  were  addressed  to  the 
Piedmontese  authorities,  and  in  nine  others  his  name  is 
found  with  those  of  his  brother-bishops. 

.He  lifted  his  voice  in  this  solemn  manner,  however,  only 
when  forced  to  it  by  an  imperious  sense  of  duty.  In  sub- 
mitting to  the  new  domination  he  did  not  accept  it  or  con- 
ceal his  opinion  of  its  unlawfulness.  Ceasing  to  struggle 
against  resistless  might,  he  labored  without  ceasing  to  save 
the  souls  of  his  people,  counselling  the  moderation  which  he 
practised  himself,  inducing  all  who  obeyed  him  to  practise 

*  Perugia,  June  24,  1861,   "  Scelta  dei  Atti  Episcopal!,"  pp.  466-69. 


250  LIFE  OF  LEO  XI II. 

more  fervently  than  ever  before  the  duties  of  prayer  with 
all  the  Christian  virtues,  avoiding  in  word  and  deed  all  that 
could  give  offence  to  others  or  afford  a  pretext  to  the  ill- 
disposed  to  annoy  or  to  persecute. 

While  openly  and  immovably  opposed  to  a  government 
which  discarded  the  legislation,  institutions,  and  traditions 
of  the  Christian  past,  Cardinal  Pecci  never  forgot,  in  dealing 
with  those  in  power,  the  courtesies  of  life  and  that  gentle 
dignity  of  manner  which  adds  so  much  to  superior  station. 
He  was  careful  not  to  offend  where  his  conscience  would 
not  permit  him  to  conciliate.  And  he  never  sought  to 
communicate  with  the  new  authorities  save  when  he  wish- 
ed to  serve  the  private  or  public  interests  of  his  flock. 

In  t^uth,  it  would  have  been  worse  than  useless  to  at- 
tempt to  conciliate  the  spirit  which  ruled  the  government, 
the  administration,  the  legislature,  or  the  revolutionary 
press  during  all  these  fateful  years.  Conciliation,  so  far 
as  they  were  concerned,  meant  more  than  to  compromise 
on  the  most  sacred  principles  ;  it  meant  virtual,  if  not  for- 
mal, renouncement  of  one's  most  cherished  and  conscien- 
tious convictions.  It  was  something  like  apostasy. 

As  to  the  lower  classes  of  the  men  who  swelled  the 
revolutionary  party  and  sought  a  reward  in  some  form  or 
other  for  the  deeds  done  to  serve  the  cause,  it  was  impos- 
sible to  conciliate  them.  Their  anti-clericalism  and  in- 
tolerance of  everything  religious  and  priestly  was  and  is 
the  blind,  blasphemous,  unquenchable  rage  of  Garibaldi, 
their  ideal  hero.  Every  city  in  the  annexed  Papal  States 
swarmed  with  these  Sbirri  of  the  "  sects  "  or  secret  socie- 
ties as  soon  as  they  fell  under  the  Piedmontese  rule. 

These  unsatisfied  and  insatiable  servants  of  the  RevoJu- 
tion  were  evermore  on  the  watch  for  opportunities  and 
pretexts  to  display  their  patriotic  zeal  and  anti-clerical 
passions.  They  found  a  very  plausible  pretext  in  the  se- 
verity shown  by  Cardinal  Pecci  in  censuring  three  of  his 
priests  who  had  openly  set  themselves  in  opposition  with 
the  authoritative  teaching  of  Pius  IX.  He  was  denounced 
to  the  civil  magistrates  as  having  committed  a  punishable 


EFFORTS  TO  RELIEVE  POOR  RELIGIOUS.  25! 

offence  by  "  exciting  men  to  contemn  the  laws  of  the  king- 
dom." The  court  decided  that  the  accusation  was  ground- 
less ;  but  the  case  was  appealed,  and  the  higher  court  in  its 
turn  declared  the  Cardinal  innocent. 


II. 

Among  the  cruel  anxieties  of  his  position  none  was 
more  painful  than  to  see,  in  the  suppression  of  Monastic 
Orders,  the  sequestration  of  their  property,  and  the  break- 
ing up  of  so  many  homes  of  peaceful  piety,  poverty,  prayer, 
and  labor,  the  number  of  helpless  men  and  women — many 
of  them  infirm  and  aged — cast  upon  the  world  without  a 
roof  above  them  or  any  adequate  means  of  support.  All  of 
these,  in  choosing  to  enter  religious  life  in  their  youth,  had 
devoted  their  entire  existence  to  the  community  of  which 
they  became  members.  Very  many,  if  not  most,  of  the 
communities  of  men  were  made  up  of  persons  who  had 
brought  a  goodly  share  of  their  worldly  substance  to  their 
new  home.  What  they  brought  was  their  own  ;  they  had 
a  perfect  right  to  dispose  of  it,  just  as  they  had  an  unques- 
tioned right  to  select  their  own  way  of  living.  This  was 
the  case  especially  with  the  contemplative  orders.  As  to 
the  communities  of  women,  all  brought  their  dower.  Their 
parents  gave  to  them,  on  selecting  a  life  of  celibacy  and 
retirement,  what  they  would  have  given  them  in  worldly 
bridals.  These  transactions  were  sanctioned  alike  by  the 
laws  of  the  Church  and  the  civil  laws.  It  was  natural  jus- 
tice as  well  as  religion  which  presided  over  the  establish- 
ment of  the  monastic  home,  over  the  contract  formed  with 
it  by  parents  and  children.  Such  homes  and  their  property 
could  no  more  belong  to  the  state  nor  be  subject  to  se- 
questration than  the  home  and  property  and  revenues  of 
the  prince,  the  peasant,  or  the  mechanic.  And  then  to 
come  all  of  a  sudden,  and  by  the  brutal  right  of  superior 
force  to  turn  these  men  and  women,  living  in  accordance 
with  the  most  ancient  and  revered  laws  of  the  land,  out  on 
the  street,  penniless,  homeless,  and  incapacitated  from  fol- 


252  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

lowing  any  lucrative  calling — it  was  a  monstrous  injustice, 
calling  down  reprobation  on  a  government  which  ought  to 
be  Christian,  but  which  was,  in  this  as  in  all  else,  doing  the 
work  of  Antichrist. 

What  could  Cardinal  Pecci  do  to  alleviate  such  misery? 
The  new  masters  of  Italy  seized  his  income  as  well  as  that 
of  his  clergy.  He  and  they  would  get  just  as  much  or  as 
little  as  it  pleased  the  minister  of  Victor  Emmanuel  to 
give — that  is,  nothing  at  all  to  those  esteemed  unfriendly  to 
the  new  order  of  things,  and  a  pittance,  sadly  diminished 
and  very  irregularly  paid,  to  all  the  others.  But  the  good 
Cardinal  could  find  resources  even  in  his  poverty,  for  he 
spent  but  little,  very  little  indeed,  on  himself,  frugal  and 
austere  as  he  had  ever  been.  And  now  he  would  fain  re- 
fuse himself  even  the  necessaries  of  life  to  have  something 
to  give  to  that  crowd  of  wanderers  whose  hearts  had  so 
long  been  set  on  that  other  and  better  world. 

On  March  5,  1863,  King  Victor  Emmanuel  published  a 
royal  edict  requiring  that  all  appointments  to  positions  in 
the  clergy  and  all  acts  relating  to  the  same  should  be  sub- 
mitted to  the  civil  authority,  and  should  have  no  effect  or 
practical  validity  till  confirmed  in  the  king's  name  by  what 
is  known  as  the  royal  placet  or  exequatur.  In  this  decree 
the  Holy  See,  to  which  it  appertains  to  nominate  and  pro- 
vide for  all  ecclesiastical  dignities  and  benefices,  is  spoken 
of  as  "  a  foreign  power." 

The  right  here  claimed  and  arrogated  by  the  usurping 
Piedmontese  government  is  unblushingly  described  as  "  one 
of  the  supreme  rights  of  the  civil  power,"  whereas  in  all 
past  European  jurisprudence  the  right  of  royal  placet  or 
exequatur  was  only  granted  by  the  Holy  See  to  certain 
sovereigns,  for  a  certain  time  and  within  certain  limits,  as 
a  reward  for  certain  extraordinary  services  rendered  to 
Christendom.  In  other  kingdoms  this  right  was  used  by 
the  governments  in  spite  of  the  Church,  which  never 
ceased  to  protest  against  it  as  a  usurpation.  In  the  for- 
mer dukedom  of  Savoy  and  kingdom  of  Sardinia  the 
concordats  with  the  Holy  See  most  explicitly  affirmed  the 


A  NOBLE  ASSERTION  OF  CHRISTIAN  LIBERTY. 


253 


nature  of  such  right  as  being  a  concession  and  favor  of  the 
ecclesiastical  or  spiritual  power. 

Hence  the  unblushing  boldness  of  the  minister  who 
spoke  in  the  king's  name.  But,  in  truth,  Right  had  very 
little  to  do  with  all  the  proceedings  of  Victor  Emmanuel 
and  the  Revolution  in  Central  Italy.  Might  alone  prevailed. 
It  was  needless  hypocrisy  to  seek  to  color  usurpation  and 
oppression  by  the  fair  name  of  justice  or  right.  It  was 
worse  than  hypocrisy,  a  pitiful  falsehood,  to  speak  of  the 
supreme  power  in  the  Church  as  being  "a  foreign  power" 
in  Italy,  and,  above  all,  in  the  very  provinces  which  had, 
since  the  eighth  and  ninth  centuries,  acknowledged  the 
Pope,  even  in  the  times  of  the  Free  Republics,  as  the 
suzerain  power. 

Again  the  bishops  of  Umbria  had  recourse  to  Cardinal 
Pecci  as  their  counsellor  and  mouth-piece,  and  another 
magnificent  remonstrance  was  drawn  up  by  him  and  sent, 
with  his  own  and  his  colleagues'  signatures,  to  Victor  Em- 
manuel on  June  8,  1863.* 

There  does  not  exist  a  nobler  monument  of  episcopal 
independence  and  noble  Christian  liberty  in  asserting  the 
rights  of  God  and  of  His  Church  as  against  the  pretensions 
and  usurpations  of  the  secular  power. 

Such  a  pretension  "  can  in  nowise  be  made  by  a  govern- 
ment which  is  and  would  continue  to  be  Catholic.  May- 
hap the  divine  commission  given  to  Peter  and  his  succes- 
sors to  feed  the  whole  Christian  flock,  to  loose  and  to  bind 
upon  earth,  had  annexed  to  it  the  condition  that  they 
should  begin  by  obtaining  the  placet,  or  consent  of  the 
powers  of  this  world  ?  And  the  divine  mission  imposed 
on  the  Apostles  to  preach  to  all  nations  and  to  instruct 
them  in  the  divine  commandments  was  perchance  subor- 
dinated to  the  good  pleasure  and  the  restrictions  of  the 
civil  magistrates? 

"  Far  from  it.  Peter  and  the  Apostles,  and  so  many 
other  illustrious  pastors  following  their  example,  strug- 

*"  Scelta  di  Atti  Episcopal!, "  pp.  357  and  following. 


254  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIIL 

gled  and  endured  martyrdom  for  no  other  reason  than  that 
they  proclaimed  the  New  Law  of  Christ,  no  matter  how 
rigorously  forbidden  by  the  world,  in  spite  of  the  prohibi- 
tions and  persecutions  of  mere  human  politicians.  The 
independence  of  the  power  divinely  entrusted  to  the  Visi- 
ble Head  of  religion  and  to  the  other  lawful  pastors  for 
the  spiritual  government  of  the  Christian  society  has  its 
origin  from  God ;  whosoever  attacks  or  ignores  it  denies 
the  work  of  God  in  founding  and  organizing  His  Church. 
To  oppose  impediments  or  put  restraints  such  as  those  in 
question  on  the  exercise  of  this  power  is  just  to  place  a 
human  institution  above  the  divine,  and  to  make  an 
earthly  power  the  judge  and  reformer  of  a  divine  commis- 
sion. .  .  . 

"...  Modern  theorists  will  not  or  know  not  how  to 
distinguish  the  two  well-defined  paths  along  which,  by  di- 
vine ordinance,  both  the  civil  and  the  ecclesiastical  powers 
have  to  travel  toward  the  end  assigned  to  each  respective- 
ly. The  modern  theory  will  have  the  much-desired  har- 
mony between  Church  and  state  considered  as  a  right  of 
inspection  (on  the  part  of  the  latter),  whereas  this  har- 
mony is  only  greatly  recommended  for  the  sake  of  the  re- 
ciprocal advantage  of  the  respective  subjects  of  both  so- 
cieties. It  thus  transforms  into  a  legal  patronage  and  mas- 
tery the  obligation  which  each  power  is  under  toward  the 
other  of  assisting  and  protecting  it,  in  order  that  each  so- 
ciety may  fully  enjoy  its  due  proportion  of  utility.  Hence 
it  is  that,  instead  of  affirming  the  originary  independence 
and  superiority  of  the  spiritual  power,  people  endeavored 
to  make  of  the  Church  a  ward  and  servant  of  temporal 
monarchies." 

The  remonstrance  then  deals  with  the  history  of  the 
practice  called  exequatur.  The  first  trace  recorded  of  it 
occurs  in  the  pontificate  of  Urban  VI.  (1378-1389)  during 
the  great  Western  schism.  The  concession,  aiming  at  veri- 
fying the  authenticity  of  the  papal  rescripts  and  other 
such  documents  in  a  time  of  calamitous  doubt  and  division, 
was  only  given  to  certain  Church  prelates  and  judges  in 


255 


256  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

such  churches  as  were  most  in  danger  of  schism.  And  the 
concession  was  only  a  temporary  one.  When  there  were 
no  more  anti-popes  or  danger  of  intrusion  into  pastoral 
offices  this  exequatur  ceased. 

In  so  far  as  the  house  of  Savoy  is  concerned,  the  con- 
cession of  exequatur,  or  all  favors  granted  by  the  Popes  in 
the  matter  of  benefices  or  patronal  rights,  is  not  one  of 
doubt  or  obscurity.  Such  favors  were  granted  for  a  time  ; 
were  then  claimed  as  a  right,  made  the  subject  of  grave 
abuse,  gave  rise  to  long  and  complex  negotiations,  which 
were  all  settled  by  that  great  canonist,  Benedict  XIV.,  on 
January  6,  1742.  But  even  he  distinctly  asserted,  what  the 
Piedmontese  government  of  the  day  recognized,  "  the  in- 
dependence and  inviolability  of  all  papal  instructions  is- 
sued for  the  spiritual  government  of  that  Catholic  coun- 
try." 

The  remonstrance  thereupon  contrasts  with  these  facts 
of  past  history  what  has  just  happened  in  Central  Italy. 
."  The  dispositions  announced  in  the  ministerial  circular 
of  March  22  [1863]  depart  altogether  from  these  rules, 
and,  setting  aside  the  economy  of  the  conventions  con- 
cluded in  former  times  [between  the  Sardinian  and  Pon- 
tifical governments],  they  arrogate  to  themselves  an  abso- 
lute and  lordly  power  of  registration  on  all  the  acts  with- 
out distinction  of  the  ecclesiastical  power." 

This,  of  course,  is  what  the  Holy  See  never  could  in 
any  supposition  tolerate. 

The  ministerial  circular  promulgating  the  new  law 
affirmed  that  the  government  only  did  what  always  had 
been  done  hitherto.  This  was  a  palpable  falsehood. 

"  For  these  dioceses  of  Umbria,"the  remonstrance  says, 
on  the  contrary,  "  a  comparison  with  the  past  is  too  elo- 
quent not  to  convince  any  one  that  the  passage  from  a 
condition  of  perfect  religious  liberty  to  that  of  registration 
and  bondage  to  the  state  is  not  only  a  novelty,  but  a  nov- 
elty all  too  real  and  baneful. 

"  Is  it  not  a  novelty,  a  novelty  in  principle,  to  consider 
the  authority  which  the  Supreme  Head  of  the  Church  ex- 


A   TERRIBLE  ARRAIGNMENT. 


257 


ercises  in  the  midst  of  the  Catholic  fold   as  a  foreign  au- 
tJwrity  ? 

"  Is  it  not  a  novelty  that  lay  officials  should  intrude 
themselves  as  spies  and  judges  of  the  spiritual  relations 
between  the  faithful  and  their  pastors,  and  of  what  it  is 
either  expedient  to  do  or  to  permit  for  the  protection  and 
increase  of  religion  ? 

"Is  it  not  a  novelty  to  give  to  a  single  functionary 
of  the  treasury  the  authority  to  inquire  into  all  ecclesi- 
astical pensions,  to  receive  all  opposing  documents,  to 
judge  appeals,  to  incite  people  to  refuse,  and  to  confiscate 
the  documents  or  petitions  relating  to  the  refusal? 

"  Is  it  not  a  novelty,  in  giving  the  exequatur  to  reve- 
nues for  sacred  functions,  to  seek  at  the  same  time  to  ful- 
fil financial  transactions,  imposing  on  ecclesiastical  bodies 
which  have  no  legal  existence  the  obligation  to  convert  their 
property  into  bonds  on  tJie  state  ?"* 

And  so  the  terrible  arraignment  went  on,  enumerating 
such  acts  of  inconceivable  oppression  and  meanness  as 
would,  if  made  known,  have  ruined  any  government  in  a 
country  where  people  read  the  newspapers.  But  in  Italy 
the  masses  are  not  a  newspaper-reading  people,  and  the 
government  presumed  on  the  fact  to  tyrannize  with  im- 
punity. 

"  It  was  the  old  art  of  heterodox  innovators,"  the  Car- 
dinal elsewhere  says  to  the  king,  "  to  make  people  believe 
that  the  spiritual  power  might  be  always  laying  traps  for 
the  civil  power.  Their  object  was  thereby  to  put  an  end 
to  any  beneficial  mutual  influence  or  understanding  be- 
tween the  Church  and  the  state,  and  thus  to  introduce  the 
baneful  theory  that  there  should  exist  between  them  sys- 
tematic distrust  and  aversion.  ..." 

There  is  a  disheartening  picture  of  the  working  of 
this  mean  and  tyrannical  interference  with  the  government 
of  the  Church  in  the  minutest  details,  and  the  spy-system 
introduced  into  this  state  superintendence  of  all  Church 

*Our  readers  will  doubtless  remember  that  thus  was  confiscated  the 
property  of  the  Propaganda. 


258  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

accounts  and  ministerial  functions.  These  are  things  never 
till  now  heard  of  in  the  English-speaking  world,  and  will 
account  for  the  reiterated  and  indignant  remonstrances  of 
Pius  IX.,  and  the  no  less  indignant  but  equally  ineffica- 
cious protests  of  his  successor. 

"  In  the  official  scales  it  is  not  always  the  conscientious 
judgment  of  the  bishop,  nor  the  results  of  the  canonical 
concursus,  nor  the  precedent  merits  and  services,  nor  the 
exemplary  priestly  life  which  have  the  greatest  weight  in 
obtaining  for  a  candidate  the  civil  possession  of  the  pre- 
bend conferred  on  him ;  but  certain  complacencies  for  the 
world,  the  sympathy  of  political  parties,  the  merits,  in 
fact,  of  modern  patriotism,  are  the  only  things  which  too 
often  are  taken  into  account. 

"  It  is  painful  to  think  of  it,  deplorable  to  have  to 
say  it !  The  collation  of  ecclesiastical  livings,  trammelled 
by  the  governmental  placet^  appeared  to  people  to  have 
been  changed  into  a  monopoly  of  political  interests,  and 
into  a  focus  of  hateful  undertakings  against  the  Supreme 
Pontificate  and  the  Church.  To  prevent  the  installation  in 
the  charges  obtained  by  them  of  hard-working  and  blame- 
less priests  who  had  received  canonical  investiture  and  the 
approbation  of  their  bishops,  men  were  found  to  pry  into 
the  secret  thoughts  of  the  candidates,  to  have  recourse  to 
a  systematic  distrust  of  them,  to  the  theories  current  about 
suspected  persons ;  they  opened  up  the  door  to  secret  de- 
nunciations, to  low  party  intrigues.  At  the  same  time  all 
kinds  of  favors  are  showered  on  disobedient  and  worldly- 
minded  priests;*  such  obtain  charges,  honors,  pensions, 
assigned  to  them  most  frequently  at  the  expense  of  the 
revenues  of  the  Church,  as  a  reward  for  having  turned  their 
backs  upon  her.  There  has  been  no  lack  of  official  enco- 
miums and  encouragements  given  to  certajn  clerical  fac- 

*  By  a  decree  of  the  Royal  Commissary  of  Umbria,  November  30. 
1860,  ".  .  .  a  monthly  pension  of  sixty  Italian  lire  [twelve  dollars]  is 
granted  to  all  priests  of  these  provinces  who,  for  their  deeds  in  favor  of 
liberty  or  patriotism,  have  been  suspended  a  tiivinis."  (Note  added  to 
the  text) 


FAVORS  BESTOWED  ON  WRONGDOERS.  259 

tions  who,  led  away  by  ambition,  by  self-interest  or  false 
liberty,  endeavored  to  upset  in  the  sanctuary  itself  all  order 
and  discipline,  and  to  raise  there  the  flag  of  emancipation 
and  schism.  Abundant  subsidies  were  bestowed  on  sus- 
pended priests.  .  .  .  Generous  presents  were  set  apart  for 
the  benefit  of  unruly  priests,  at  the  expense  of  the  Clerical 
Fund  and  against  the  spirit  of  its  founders,  while  so  many 
cenobites  and  nuns,  stripped  of  their  own  lawful  patri- 
mony, had  not  wherewith  to  buy  their  daily  bread." 

One's  amazement  and  indignation  go  on  increasing  as 
the  courageous  Cardinal  enumerates  the  terrible  grievances 
to  which  the  Church  and  the  clergy  are  subjected  "  in  the 
name  of  liberty  and  patriotism." 

"  The  fact  is,"  he  continues,  "  that  here  the  assent  pf 
the  civil  authority  is  necessary  for  the  execution  of  every 
episcopal  act,  every  ecclesiastical  arrangement,  which  does 
not  rigorously  regard  the  interior  conscience. 

"  Here  you  find  proscribed  all  interference  of  the 
bishop  with  instruction  and  education,  even  such  as  are 
moral  and  religious,  whether  in  schools  or  in  boarding- 
houses,  in  hospitals  and  asylums ;  and  that  in  spite  of  the 
formal  requirements  of  the  testaments  of  founders  and  of 
the  conditions  imposed  by  the  foundation. 

"  Our  hearts  will  not  permit  us  to  continue  this  pain- 
ful enumeration,"  the  prelates  say  in  concluding.  "  When 
the  Church  is  thus  ill-treated  in  a  Catholic  country  it  is 
easy  to  conjecture  what  ruinous  results  follow  for  the  reli- 
gious interests  of  a  people.  We  hope  that  our  words  may 
not  be  altogether  without  fruit,  if  your  Majesty  will  only 
weigh  the  importance  of  the  subject  with  which  their  re- 
monstrance deals  in  the  same  balance  in  which  you  weigh 
your  duties  as  a  Catholic  sovereign." 


CHAPTER    XVII. 

A  PAUSE  IN  THE  CONFLICT:  A  FAMILY  FEAST. — I.  CELE- 
BRATING THE  ARCIIlilSIIOP'S  ELEVATION  TO  THE  t  Ak- 
DINALATB. 

IN  describing  the  indefatigable  labors  of  the  Arch- 
bishop-Bishop of  Perugia,  although  we  gave  him 
again  and  again  the  title  of  Cardinal,  we  could  not  pause 
to  give  to  the  reader  the  details  of  his  elevation  to  the 
dignity  of  the  Roman  purple.  In  some  published  biogra- 
phies of  Leo  XIII.  it  is  positively  affirmed  that  Gregory 
XVI.  before  his  death  had  created  Monsignor  Pecci  Car- 
dinal, and  that  some  sinister  influence  prevented  Pius  IX. 
from  giving  effect  to  the  act  of  his  predecessor.  We  think 
the  authentic  statement  we  here  make  will  set  all  doubts 
on  this  point  at  rest. 

"  The  honor  of  the  sacred  purple  had  already  been  de- 
creed to  him  in  the  intention  (iiclla  mcntf)  of  Gregory  XVI. 
from  the  moment  that  the  latter  recalled  him  from  Bel- 
gium ;  and  the  proof  is  that  the  Pope  before  his  death 
said  to  a  revered  member  of  the  Sacred  College  who  en 
joyed  his  confidence — Cardinal  Bianchi — that  he  was  so 
much  pleased  by  Monsignor  Pecci's  prompt  acquiescence 
in  accepting  the  bishopric  of  Perugia  that  he  was  think- 
ing of  promoting  him  in  the  next  consistory. 

"  This  cardinal,  on  seeing  Monsignor  Pecci  afterwards 
in  1847,  embraced  him  affectionately,  and,  making  him  sit 
down  by  his  side,  '  The  Church  has  experienced  a  great  loss,' 
he  said,  '  in  the  death  of  Gregory  XVI.  I  am  sorry  for  it 
for  your  sake  also,  Monsignor;  for  I  can  now  assure  you 
that  were  it  not  for  that  death  you  would  be  already  a 
cardinal/ 

"The  long  and  difficult  series  of  political  changes  which 
unfolded  itself  after  the  death  of  Pope  Gregory  was  the 


JO  A  CHIM  PECCI ELE  VA  TED  TO  THE  CARDINALA  TE.    261 

reason  why  his  gracious  purpose  was  not  carried  into  effect 
and  had  to  be  delayed  for  several  years.  Pius  IX.,  who 
was  aware  of  the  promises  made  on  this  point  in  the  reign 
of  his  predecessor,  and  mindful  of  the  services  rendered  by 
Monsignor  Pecci  to  the  Holy  See  in  the  charges  which  he 
had  held,  resolved  to  preconize  him  in  the  consistory  of 
December  19,  1853,  assigning  to  him  the  presbyteral  title 
of  St.  Chrysogonus.  During  the  festive  ceremonies  of  the 
promotion,  and  in  receiving  the  cardinal's  hat,  he  had  for 
companion  the  illustrious  Cardinal  Brunelli,  just  returned 
from  the  nunciature  of  Spain.  The  entire  diplomatic 
corps,  the  Roman  nobility,  and  many  strangers  of  distinc- 
tion visited,  on  this  occasion,  the  new  cardinals.  Among 
the  visitors  was  the  present  Prince  Imperial  of  Germany, 
Frederick  William,  who  offered  them  his  most  courteous 
congratulations.  From  Perugia  also  came  select  deputa- 
tions of  all  orders  of  citizens  to  escort  their  Cardinal  Arch- 
bishop on  his  return,  and  to  lay  at  the  feet  of  the  Pope 
their  respectful  thanks  for  the  honor  done  their  city  and 
diocese."  * 

In  Perugia,  meanwhile,  they  were  making  great  prepara- 
tions to  celebrate,  on  his  return,  his  elevation  to  the  cardi- 
nalate.  It  was  a  family  feast,  at  which  holiest  love  pre- 
sided— the  grateful  love  of  a  whole  people  for  a  pastor 
and  a  parent,  for  a  man  of  God  who  has  been  in  their 
midst  the  visible  image  of  the  divine  goodness  and  bene- 
ficence. 

In  the  beginning  of  1854  Cardinal  Pecci's  great  family 
could  be  said  to  be  a  united  one.  During  the  dark  years 
of  1848,  1849,  and  l85°  the  Archbishop  of  Perugia  had 
made  superhuman  efforts  to  prevent  the  outbreak  of  the 
evil  revolutionary  passions  which  had  been  fanned  into  so 
fierce  a  flame.  Where  he  could  not  quench  these  unholy 
fires  he  exerted  himself  to  save  his  people  from  their  fury 
and  to  cure  the  mischief  they  had  done.  When  the  whirl- 
wind and  the.  flame  had  passed  away  for  a  time  he  be- 

*MS. 


262  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

sought  the  Pontifical  government  to  restore  to  their  fami- 
lies such  of  the  insurgents  as  had  been  more  sinned  against 
than  sinning,  who  had  been  led  away  by  the  artifices  of 
the  revolutionary  propaganda. 

So  that  the  Cardinal  had,  even  among  those  most  bit- 
terly opposed  to  the  Pontifical  authority  and  to  the  Church 
itself,  not  a  few  who  regarded  him  with  respect  and  who 
gratefully  remembered  his  kindness. 

Let  us,  therefore,  rest  mind  and  heart  awhile  by  as- 
sisting at  the  family  feast  held  by  the  ancient  Etruscan 
city  on  her  hill-top  in  honor  of  her  benefactor.  It  is  like 
being  present  at  a  real  banquet  of  the  soul,  in  a  lull  be- 
tween two  awful  convulsions  of  all  the  elements  of  earth 
and  air. 

Sunday,  February  26,  was  chosen  foe  these  solemnities. 
From  early  morning  along  all  the  winding  roads  which  led 
up  to  Perugia  from  the  surrounding  valleys  the  Umbrian 
populations  could  be  seen  streaming  upward  in  their  pic- 
turesque costumes.  A  hard-working,  industrious,  intelli- 
gent, and  virtuous  people,  they  had  responded  heartily  to 
the  culture  bestowed  on  them  for  the  last  seven  years  by 
one  whose  every  thought  and  care  were  for  their  dearest 
interests.  If  the  revolutionary  and  anti-Christian  propa- 
ganda had  done  them  no  little  harm,  the  good  pastor's 
watchful  and  fatherly  zeal  had  done  them  no  little  good. 
They  loved  him,  and  they  were  proud  of  him  ;  and  well 
might  they. 

The  city  is  adorned  everywhere — a  quaint  a*nd  wonder- 
ful old  city  throughout,  with  her  walls,  like  those  of  Siena, 
scrambling  up  and  down  and  around  a  group  of  enormous 
crags  or  hills,  on  which  houses  have  got  built,  no  one 
knows  how,  and  the  crooked,  narrow  streets  find  their  way 
in  spite  of  all  the  laws  of  gravitation  and  symmetry.  It 
is — or  rather  must  have  been  in  the  days  of  Perugino  and 
Raphael — a  most  picturesque  and  beautiful  city.  Chris- 
tian architecture,  sculpture,  and  painting  had  made  of  that 
old  Christian  republic  nestling  on  these  lofty  crags  a  thing 
of  resplendent  beauty;  and  the  glory  and  the. joy  thereof 


PER  UGIA  CELEBRA  TES  HER  BISHOP'S  ELE  VA  TION.    263 

have  not  yet  departed  altogether,  despite  the  anti-Chris- 
tian hate  of  the  present  masters  of  Italy  and  the  desola- 
tion and  destruction  of  her  holy  places. 

The  old,  lovely  mediaeval  Free  City  was  the  creation  of 
the  labor-guilds,  who,  protected  by  the  Popes  and  protect- 
ing these  in  their  turn,  made  the  prehistoric  Etruscan 
stronghold  a  beehive  and  a  temple  to  religion,  to  the  arts, 
and  to  science,  and  made  of  the  surrounding  territory,  wild 
and  mountainous  as  it  is,  a  very  garden. 

They  are  a  proud  race,  these  Perugians,  and  have  they 
not  a  right  to  be  so  ?  And  how  they  love  their  native  soil ! 
It  is  so  full,  for  them,  of  most  sacred  and  most  thrilling 
memories !  So  on  that  Sabbath  morning  of  February  26, 
1854,  they  have  streamed  into  the  city  through  Perugia's 
ancient  gates — men,  women,  children,  the  old  and  the  young, 
all  who  could  come  to  share  in  the  common  joyous  cele- 
bration. They  stop  on  their  way  to  hear  Mass  in  some  one 
of  the  numerous  churches.  Perugia  was  still  under  Papal 
rule ;  the  monastic  communities  had  not  been  suppressed 
and  expelled  ;  and  there  was  in  every  church  and  at  every 
altar  a  succession  of  priests,  who  afforded  the  people  an 
opportunity  to  gratify  their  devotion  and  fulfil  the  religious 
obligation  of  the  day.  The  streets  are  gaily  decorated. 
The  Cathedral  Square  in  particular,  with  its  antique  and 
picturesque  palaces,  is  hung  with  tapestries  and  streamers. 
The  disfigured  front  of  the  Duomo  is  concealed  by  the 
scarlet  and  gold  drapery ;  and  over  the  great  central  door 
is  an  inscription — a  truth-telling  inscription  in  honor  of 
the  man  and  the  day.* 

*  One  remarkable  feature  of  the  external  decorations  of  the  cathe- 
dral was  the  following  inscription,  placed  above  the  principal  entrance 
amid  rich  hangings  of  scarlet  and  gold.  We  give  it,  deeming  that  more 
than  one  of  our  readers  may  take  a  lesson  from  classic  Italy  in  getting  up 
either  civic  or  religious  celebrations  : 

"Sancta  Perusinorum  Ecclesia— JOACHIMO  PECCI— Antistite  suo  peril- 
lustri  ac  spectatissimo— munere  SSmi  Patris  Pii  Papae  IX.— in  amplissi- 
mum  Cardinalium  S.  R.  Ecclesia:  Senatum— Isetatur  adscito— eumque  nova 
hac  splendentem  gloria — vix  dum  gratulantium  civium  vota — bene  auspi- 
cate fortunat  reditu — dulci  prosequitur  amplexu — Deumque  Optimum 


264  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

The  clergy  had  labored  to  make  of  the  religious  part  of 
the  festivities  one  worthy  of  their  chief,  of  their  city,  and 
of  themselves.  In  truth,  the  spectacle  in  the  interior  of 
the  cathedral  was  one  never  to  be  forgotten.  The  decora- 
tions were  all  that  Italian  taste  and  skill  could  make  them. 
The  multitude  of  worshippers  now  fill  every  available  space. 
All  the  authorities  are  present  in  full  official  costume,  and 
the  clergy  crowd  the  sanctuary.  The  Cardinal  himself  ful- 
fils to-day  the  functions  of  high-priest,  and  offers  the  Mys- 
tic Sacrifice  which  is  the  centre  of  Catholic  worship. 

After  the  Gospel,  as  is  his  wont  when  he  pontificates, 
he  delivers  a  homily  to  the  immense  audience.  His  voice, 
strong  and  resonant  even  at  the  present  time,  has  its  full 
and  vibrating  tones,  every  syllable  penetrating  to  the  re- 
motest corners  of  the  sacred  edifice.* 

The  circumstances  of  the  times  and  country  needed 
prayer,  and  at  the  end  of  the  Pontifical  Mass  the  Blessed 
Sacrament  was  exposed,  remaining  so  all  day,  this  being 
the  most  solemn  form  of  supplication  in  the  Catholic 
Church ;  and  all  through  afternoon  and  evening  priests 
and  people  succeeded  each  oth£r  before  the  mercy-seat. 

In  the  afternoon  there  was  a  session  of  the  great  Um- 
brian  Academy  of  the  Filcdoni  in  honor  of  the  Cardinal, 
and  which  he  honored  with  his  presence.  Sixteen  of  the 
most  accomplished  and  renowned  writers  in  Umbria  read 
exquisite  compositions,  all  of  which  were  afterwards  col- 
Maximum — solemn!  ritu  pro  diuturna  purpurati  pontificis  incolumitatc 
— Precatur — effusa  omnium  frcquentia  et  Kvtitia — IV.  Kalendas  Muitii 
MDCCCLIV." — "The  Church  of  Perugia  rejoices  that  her  illustrious 
and  most  revered  Bishop,  JOACHIM  PECCI,  has  been  raised,  by  the  favor  of 
our  Holy  Father,  Pius  IX  ,  to  the  dignity  of  Cardinal  of  the  Holy  Roman 
Church  ;  and,  while  her  citizens  have  just  felicitated  him  on  his  happy 
return,  she  receives  him  with  a  loving  embrace,  and  prays  with  solemn 
pomp  for  the  long  life  of  her  Cardinal  Bishop,  together  with  the  overflow- 
ing and  joyous  multitudes  of  people." 

*The  local  journal  which  describes  this  family  feast  says  that  his  dis- 
course touched  principally  on  the  earthquake  shocks  which  had  occurred 
during  the  Cardinal's  absence  in  Rome,  and  which  had  done  great  damage 
and  caused  widespread  alarm.  He  exhorted  his  people  to  appease  the 
divine  anger,  and  bade  them  put  their  trust  in  the  Infinite  Mercy. 


POPULAR  REJOICINGS.  265 

lected  and  printed.  In  the  evening  there  were  at  the  ca- 
thedral Pontifical  Vespers,  followed  by  the  Tc  Deuin.  The 
music,  both  in  the  morning  and  in  the  evening  services,  was 
in  keeping  with  the  artistic  renown  of  Perugia. 

Most  touching  it  was  at  the  solemn  procession  to  and 
from  the  cathedral,  forenoon  and  afternoon,  to  witness  the 
sincere  veneration  of  the  dense  multitudes  for  their  pastor. 
There  was  no  mistaking  this  outpouring  of  the  popular 
heart.  More  than  anything  else  the  eagerness  of  the 
children  to  approach  the  Cardinal  and  get  his  blessing  or 
kiss  his  hand  bespoke  the  love  entertained  towards  him  in 
the  homes  of  the  people.  On  the  route  of  the  procession, 
also,  the  city  band  of  music  discoursed  its  sweetest  and  its 
most  triumphal  strains.  But  sweetest  music  of  all  was  the 
voice  of  the  citizens  of  every  class  which  was  heard  on  all 
sides,  and  in  no  suppressed  tones,  praising  and  blessing  the 
man  whose  whole  life  and  strength  were  devoted  to  the 
good  of  his  flock.  The  municipal  authorities,  besides  gene- 
rously paying  the  expenses  of  this  feast,  caused  abundant 
alms  to  be  distributed  among  the  poor  who  had  come  to 
the  celebration  ;  and,  what  was  more  significant,  they  gave 
a  marriage-dower  to  five  poor  and  respectable  young  wo- 
men to  be  selected  by  the  Cardinal  in  the  five  wards  of  the 
city.  In  the  evening  Perugia  was  magnificently  and  spon- 
taneously illuminated.  During  the  evening  also  "  the  Car- 
dinal had  the  satisfaction  to  see  in  his  residence  all  the 
authorities,  all  the  most  distinguished  persons  of  every 
rank  and  condition,  enjoying  the  delightful  entertainment 
to  which  he  had  invited  them.  .  .  .  Any  one  who  is  ac- 
quainted with  the  character  of  our  people,  and  who  could 
have  been  in  Perugia  both  at  the  time  of  the  elevation  of 
our  Bishop  to  the  dignity  of  Cardinal  and  at  the  celebra- 
tion of  last  Sunday,  must  have  seen  how  flattered  the  Pe- 
rugians  were  by  the  favor  conferred  on  the  city  in  the  per- 
son of  our  prelate."  * 

*  Ossf,  -valorc  deW  Vmbria,  March  I,  1854. 


266  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

II.   PERUGIA     CELEBRATES     HER    ARCHBISHOP'S  SILVKR 
JVBILEE,    I8;i. 

It  was  in  the  midst  of  the  gloom  which  settled  on  all 
true  Catholic  hearts  in  Italy,  after  the  Piedmontese  occu- 
pation of  Rome,  that  the  time  came  round  to  celebrate 
the  twenty-fifth  anniversary  of  Cardinal  Pecci's  appoint- 
ment to  the  see  of  Perugia.  His  soul,  oppressed  as  it  was 
by  the  calamities  of  the  Holy  Father,  by  the  manifold  spo- 
liations which  the  Church  had  almost  daily  to  undergo  in 
every  diocese  of  Italy,  and  by  the  means  openly  taken  to 
choke  up  and  destroy  all  the  springs  of  Christian  life  in  the 
land,  was  but  little  inclined  to  joyous  celebrations.  The 
church  of  Perugia,  which  he  had  taken  to  his  heart  twenty- 
five  years  before,  and  which  he  had  loved  with  a  love  so 
true  and  so  devoted,  was  also  subjected  to  the  same  Baby- 
lonian bondage.  He  had  labored  so  hard,  after  the  ex- 
ample of  the  Master,  to  make  her  a  glorious  church, 
crowned  with  the  beauty  of  holiness,  and  rejoicing  in  chil- 
dren worthy  to  be  truly  called  the  children  of  God;  and  lo ! 
his  labors  seemed  doomed  to  come  to  naught.  The  enemy 
had  come  into  the  field  where,  with  the  good  grain  cast  so 
abundantly  into  the  furrows,  the  sweat  and  the  tears  of  the 
father  of  the  family  had  fallen,  and  he  had  ploughed  up  the 
growing  corn  and  sown  tares  and  the  seeds  of  all  lawless- 
ness. It  was  a  season  for  weeping,  fasting,  prayer,  and  hu- 
miliation before  the  Most  High.  How  could  he  consent  to 
rejoice  or  to  listen  to  the  glad  voices  of  his  people  ? 

The  people  would  not  allow  his  year  of  jubilee  to  pass, 
nevertheless.  They  had  determined  to  make  him  feel  that, 
even  though  the  enemy  had  come  in  amongst  them  in  the 
night  and  done  what  havoc  he  could,  the  generations  whose 
minds  and  hearts  he,  the  man  of  God,  had  cultivated  so 
lovirrgly,  would  bear  him  plentiful  fruits  of  gladness  in 
the  season  of  need. 

Clergy  and  citizens,  therefore,  assembled  in  spite  of  his 
reluctance,  and  resolved  to  celebrate  the  occasion  with  as 
much  solemnity  and  even  more  profuse  demonstrations 


ARCHBISHOP  PE CCI S  SIL  VER  J UBILEE.  267 

of  love  and  gratitude  than  on  the  occasion — long  ago, 
across  the  dark  gulf  of  evil  days — of  his  elevation  to  the 
cardinalate.  The  Cathedral  of  San  Lorenzo  again  put  on 
her  most  splendid  vesture.  Pens  whom  the  Cardinal  had 
trained  to  emulate  his  own  exquisite  culture  of  the  Latin 
tongue  composed  commemorative  inscriptions,  for  the  por- 
tal and  other  parts  of  the  beautiful  edifice,  which  Cicero 
and  Sallust  would  have  admired.*  Prelates  and  digni- 
taries from  the  neighboring  dioceses,  and  from  Rome  it- 
self, came  to  Perugia  to  testify  their  love  and  admiration 
for  one  who,  next  to  Pius  IX.  himself,  had  been  the  cham- 
pion of  the  oppressed  Italian  churches,  the  spokesman  of 
the  episcopacy,  their  model  and  guide  in  withstanding  evil 
and  upholding  the  sacred  rights  of  the  pastors  and  their 
flocks,  without  ever  allowing  the  watchful  invader  to  dis- 
cover a  word  or  an  act  which  Christ  Himself  would  not 
have  avowed. 

The  Holy  Father  sent  his  congratulations.  Day  by  day 
some  new  merit  revealed  itself  in  the  life  and  actions  of 
the  Cardinal-Bishop  of  Perugia  which  raised  him  higher  in 
the  esteem  of  the  much-tried  Pontiff.  The  festivities  in 
Perugia  were,  therefore,  a  sort  of  national  feast,  in  which 
all  Umbria,  Rome,  and  Italy  joined. 

Even  the  Piedmontese  masters  of  Umbria  thought  it 
best  not  to  thwart  the  popular  will  on  that  memorable 
1 7th  of  January,  1871.  The  procession  to  the  cathedral 
was  even  more  magnificent  than  in  1854,  when  Perugia,  still 
Papal,  and  the  country  population  round  about  filled  the 
beautiful  Piazza  and  the  adjoining  streets.  The  inscrip- 
tion above  the  great  central  door  spoke  of  "  the  Acts  and 
Prayers  of  the  Clergy  of  Perugia  "  on  this  solemn  anniver- 
sary, f  The  omission  of  the  word  "  people  "  or  "  citizens  " 
was  significant  of  the  great  change  which  had  taken  place, 
and  of  the  prudence  imposed  on  the  ministers  of  religion. 
But  far  more  significant  of  the  temper  of  the  times  and 
of  the  trials  religion  was  then  undergoing  is  the  fact  that 

*  See  Appendix  D.  f  Ada  et  vota — Cleri perusini. 


268  LIFE  OF  LEO  Xf/I. 

all  day,  from  early  dawn  till  evening,  the  Blessed  Sacra- 
ment was  exposed  in  the  cathedral  as  on  occasions  when 
there  is  some  great  and  urgent  need  of  supplicating  the 
divine  mercy.  All  day  priests  and  people  succeeded  each 
other  before  the  mercy-seat. 

At  ten  o'clock  in  the  morning  the  Cardinal  celebrated 
Pontifical  Mass.  At  noon  there  was  a  meeting  of  clergy 
and  citizens  at  the  episcopal  residence ;  a  joint  address  of 
congratulation  was  read  to  the  good  pastor,  and  a  joint 
testimonial  of  gratitude  and  veneration  presented  in  the 
form  of  a  bronze  statue  of  Mary  Immaculate,  a  work  of 
the  sculptor  Cecchini,  a  Perugian,  which  had  obtained  the 
first  premium  in  Rome  the  year  before. 

In  the  afternoon  there  were  Pontifical  Vespers,  a  ser- 
mon on  the  Christian  Priesthood,  Te  Deum,  and  Benedic- 
tion. The  vota  or  prayers  recorded  for  the  Cardinal- 
Bishop  are  too  remarkable  to  be  omitted  here : 

"  Mary,  Mother  of  Grace,  *  who  art  the  protectress, 
honor,  and  joy  of  the  people  of  Perugia,  do  thou  some 
day  repay  with  a  crown  of  glory  Joachim,  our  Cardinal- 
Bishop,  in  return  for  the  golden  diadem  which  his  filial 
hands  formerly  placed  around  thy  virginal  brow. 

"  Holy  Lawrence,  thou  who  art  given  a  command  over 
nature,  be  propitious,  we  pray  thee,  to  Joachim,  our  Car- 
dinal and  pastor;  grant  him  to  the  end  of  his  life  that 
strength  with  which  thou  didst  appall  thy  executioners 
whilst  consumed  by  the  slow  tortures  of  thy  red-hot  grid- 
iron, in  order  that  the  men  who  are  continually  torturing 
the  Church  by  their  plots  may  admire  him  in  spite  of 
themselves." f  How  prophetic  of  the  years  following  1878! 

*Tlie  Virgin  Mary  is  called  in  the  Litany  "the  Mother  of  Divine 
Grace  "  because  she  gave  birth  to  the  Redeemer,  the  Author  and  Fount  of 
grace.  A  votive  church  near  Perugia  bore  also  the  title  of  Our  Lady  of 
Grace.  In  it  was  a  picture  or  statue  of  Our  Lady  which  Cardinal  Pecci 
had  crowned  on  a  former  occasion. 

f  The  Roman  deacon,  St.  Lawrence,  was  treasurer  of  the  church,  or 
the  depositary  of  the  fund  destined  to  the  poor.  He  was  roasted  on  a 
gridiron  over  a  slow  fire,  to  force  him  to  give  up  the  moneys  which.  Ue  bad 
already  distributed  to  the  needy- 


LABORS  AS  A  MEMBER  OF  THE  SACRED  COLLEGE.    269 

"  Constantius  and  Herculanus,  bishops  and  martyrs, 
since  to  you  once  fell  the  care  of  this  church,  bid  our  Car- 
dinal-Bishop Joachim  to  govern  the  clergy  and  people  of 
Perugia,  under  your  guidance  and  protection,  for  many 
times  five  years  more."  * 


III.   MADE   PROTECTOR   OF  THE    FRANCISCAN    TERTIARIES. 

Pius  IX.  about  this  time,  when  the  infirmities  of  old 
age,  the  sorrows  heaped  upon  the  Religious  Orders  and  the 
secular  clergy  of  Italy,  and  the  perplexities  of  his  situa- 
tion in  Rome  rendered  the  counsels  and  presence  of  such 
men  as  Cardinal  Pecci  a  need  of  the  heart  as  well  as  a  po- 
litical necessity,  urged  on  the  latter  the  acceptance  of  the 
see  of  Frascati,  one  of  the  suburban  sees  of  Rome.  The 
change  would  have  enabled  the  Cardinal  to  live  in  the 
Eternal  City,  and  to  be  thus  within  call  of  the  Sovereign 
Pontiff. 

But  Cardinal  Pecci  was  bound  by  so  many  strong  ties 
to  the  church  of  Perugia  that  he  could  not  think  of  separa- 
tion from  it  so  long  as  the  Pope  allowed  him  the  freedom  of 
choice.  Besides,  during  these  troublous  and  perilous  years 
the  bishops  of  all  Central  Italy  stood  sadly  in  need  of  the 
friendly  sympathy  and  timely  advice  of  one  so  universally 
revered  as  the  Bishop  of  Perugia. 

The  Holy  See,  as  in  all  cases  where  an  accurate  know- 
ledge of  ecclesiastical  law  and  usage,  a  great  experience  in 
dealing  with  vexed  questions,  and  consummate  prudence 
were  necessary,  commissioned  Cardinal  Pecci  to  settle  the 
difficulties  occurring.  Together  with  these  frequent  and 
delicate  negotiations,  he  had  his  share — no  light  share 
— in  the  heavy  and  manifold  labors  imposed  on  all  the 
members  of  the  Sacred  College.  They  have  to  assist  the 
Pope  in  governing  the  universal  Church ;  the  congrega- 
tions or  permanent  committees  into  which  they  are  di- 

*  These  early  martyrs  were,  under  God,  the  parents  of  Christianity  in 
Perugia.  Herculanus  was  a  disciple  of  St.  Peter. 


2  ;O  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

vided  are  charged  with  all  the  various  and  complex  mat- 
ters pertaining  to  so  vast  an  administration. 

Cardinal  Pecci  was  a  member  of  no  less  than  six  of 
these  congregations,  and  the  matters  referred  to  him  in 
this  connection  alone  were  more  than  sufficient  to  tax  the 
time  and  abilities  of  no  ordinary  man.  But  his  life  of 
austere  simplicity  and  well-regulated  laboriousness  enabled 
him,  seemingly,  to  despatch  with  ease  any  amount  of 
business. 

Rising  before  the  dawn,  even  in  the  longest  summer 
days,  he  was  early  at  the  altar,  and  had  paid  his  debt  of 
worship  and  devotion  when  the  ordinary  occupations  of 
the  day  claimed  his  attention.  His  frugality  was  that  of 
a  hermit ;  for,  while  doing  nobly  the  offices  of  hospitality 
to  invited  guests  or  passing  strangers,  he  allowed  himself 
no  indulgence.  But  these  habits  of  personal  austerity 
and  almost  monastic  asceticism  were  the  hidden  secrets  of 
his  interior  life,  known  only  to  the  few  admitted  to  his 
utmost  intimacy.  To  all  others  whom  he  received  and  en- 
tertained with  the  dignity  and  courtesy  of  a  prince,  the 
rigor  with  which  he  treated  himself  could  only  be  guessed 
from  the  atmosphere  of  sweet  spirituality  which  surround- 
ed the  man. 

That  he  inspired  sincere  affection  and  deep  attachment 
mingled  with  veneration  has  been  well  proved  by  the  num- 
bers of  those  who  still  cherish  his  memory  in  Perugia,  and 
who  emulate  both  his  stainless  life  and  his  scholarly  quali- 
ties. 

In  1875  Pius  IX.,  aware  of  the  life-long  admiration  of 
Cardinal  Pecci  for  St.  Francis  of  Assisi  and  the  great 
fanv'ly  of  men  and  women  who  for  the  last  six  hundred 
years  follow  in  his  footsteps,  appointed  him  Protector  of 
the  Third  Order  of  St.  Francis — an  organization  estab 
lished  by  the  saint  to  enable  all  persons  living  in  the  world 
to  combine  and  help  each  other  in  practising  the  cardinal 
virtues  of  the  Gospel. 

To  help  in  any  way  toward  restoring  the  Franciscan 
institutions  to  all  their  primitive  vigor  and  splendor,  to 


A  SPIRITUAL  FEAST  AT  A  SSI  SI. 


271 


make  known  all  over  the  earth  the  heavenly  spirit  of  the 
Saint  of  Assisi,  the  passionate  lover  of  Christ  crucified  and 
the  devoted  follower  of  Christ's  poverty,  was  to  Cardinal 
Pecci  a  labor  of  love,  one  into  which  he  could  throw  him- 
self with  all  the  ardor  of  youth. 

He  proceeded  to  Assisi  as  soon  as  he  possibly  could, 
and  there,  on  November  26,  in  an  assemblage  of  all  the 
Franciscan  Tertiaries,  of  the  clergy  regular  and  secular, 
and  a  great  crowd  of  people,  he  took  formal  possession  of 
his  new  charge.  The  address  which  he  delivered  on  that 
occasion  was  only  the  prelude  to  more  solemn  and  au- 
thoritative utterances  in  later  years,  as  we  shall  see. 

"When,  a  few  days  ago,"  he  said,  "  His  Holiness  Pius 
IX.  was  pleased  to  appoint  me  Protector  of  the  Confrater- 
nity of  the  Third  Order  of  St.  Francis,  which  sprang  up  so 
many  centuries  ago  in  this  very  city,  my  heart  overflowed 
with  joy.  From  my  infancy  I  was  devoted  to  this  great 
saint,  and  have  been  ever  an  admirer  of  his  heroic  virtues ; 
and  I  have  always  looked  upon  the  Third  Order  founded 
by  him  as  upon  an  institution  springing  from  divine  inspi 
ration,  one  replete  with  Christian  wisdom  and  fruitful  in 
most  blessed  results  for  religion  and  the  entire  human  race. 

"  To  employ  one's  self  in  favoring  and   spreading  such 
an  order  is  to  foster  a  work  of  the  highest  benefit  to  reli- 
gion, to  morality,  and  to  civilization  ;  it  is  to  supply  a  salu 
tary  remedy  for  the  enormous  evils  which  afflict  society, 
and  to  restore  upon  earth  the  reign  of  holy  charity  and 
every  virtue.     Oh  !  may  God  grant  that  amid  all  the  dis 
asters  which  sadden  our  souls,  and  the  misery  amid  which 
we  are  compelled  to  live,  we  may  see  with  our  own  eyes 
a  mighty  multitude  hastening  to  take  refuge  under  the  pro 
tection    of  the   poverty  loving  Saint  of  Assisi !     Then  we 
should,  without  a  doubt,   see  those  men  becoming,  in  the 
hand  of  God,  so  many  instruments  employed  in  re-estab- 
lishing on   earth   the  quiet  we  have  lost  and  the  peace  for 
which  men  pray  so  ardently." 

Although  the  most  popular  writers  of  our  age  in  the 
English  language,  those  most  bitterly  opposed  to  the  Ca- 


272  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

tholic  Church,  have  bestowed  praise  on  him  whom  Cardinal 
Pecci  calls  in  his  text  the  rorcrdh  d' Assisi,  no  man  has  been 
held  up  to  so  much  contempt  by  French  Voltaireanism,  by 
the  Revolutionists,  Radicals,  and  Socialists,  who  so  clamor- 
ously profess  their  love  for  democratic  simplicity,  equality, 
and  liberty.  In  the  invasion  of  Italy  and  Spain  by  the  re- 
volutionary armies  under  the  Bonapartes  no  monastic  order, 
no  religious  establishments  were  the  objects  of  such  fanati- 
cal hatred  or  subjected  to  such  horrible  profanations  and 
wanton  destruction  as  the  Franciscans,  their  churches  and 
convents.  And  the  men  who  to-day  misgovern  both  coun- 
tries under  the  banner  of  liberalism  have  inherited  this 
same  blind,  inconsistent,  and  unreasoning  fanaticism. 

Since  the  Divine  Author  of  Christianity  was  born  in  a 
cave  by  the  roadside,  brought  up  in  the  laborious  obscurity 
of  the  carpenter's  shop,  and  evangelized  Judea  and  GaliK  r, 
without  possessing  a  roof  of  his  own,  a  bed  to  repose  upon, 
or  a  second  garment  for  his  use,  no  man  has  appeared  upon 
earth  who  more  sincerely,  ardently,  effectively  labored  to 
make  the  poverty  of  the  Gospel,  its  practical  equality  and 
brotherly  love — all  the  divine  charities  which  blossom  and 
ripen  upon  Hie  cross  of  Christ — to  be  loved  truly  and  cm 
braced  heartily  than  Francis  of  Assisi. 

His  dream,  his  aim,  the  object  of  his  entire  life  was  to 
bring  back  the  Christendom,  the  society  of  the  thirteenth 
century  to  that  democracy,  that  society  of  all  mankind 
become  children  of  God  and  living  on  earth,  according  to 
Christ's  doctrine  and  example,  in  the  practice  of  all  bro- 
therly virtues. 

If  this  was  a  dream  it  was  a  sublime,  a  beautiful  dream, 
one  which  should  render  the  name  of  the  dreamer  dear  to 
all  lovers  of  humanity,  all  believers  in  the  possibility  of 
establishing  here  below  a  society  in  which  order  and  fin 
dom,  equality  and  justice,  charity  and  religion  shall  be  no 
visions  of  the  brain,  no  subjects  of  idle  aspiration  or  boot- 
less quest,  but  a  mighty,  ever-present  Reality  ! 

And  how  amiable,  in  every  noble  sense  of  the  word,  was 
that  voluntary  mendicant  of  Assisi,  who  called  around  him 


2  74  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIIL 

men  born,  like  himself,  to  wealth  and  station,  but  who  aimed 
only  at  practising  anew  upon  earth  the  absolute  and  per- 
fect poverty  practised  by  Christ  and  His  Apostles  and  Dis- 
ciples, their  meekness,  patience,  and  unbounded  charity,  in 
order  that  the  Spirit  which  made  their  own  poor  cells  so 
fragrant  of  paradise  might  penetrate  into  the  palaces  of 
the  great,  the  homes  of  the  wealthy,  the  cottages  of  the 
laboring  poor,  and  be  like  the  attraction  of  a  divine  mag- 
netism drawing  all  men  and  women,  not,  indeed,  to  become 
monks  and  nuns,  but  to  band  themselves  together  for  the 
purpose  of  despising  the  pride  of  earthly  riches,  the  en- 
joyment of  sinful  luxury  and  pleasure,  of  seeking  out  the 
needy,  the  suffering,  the  heart-sore,  and  the  captive,  and  of 
making  of  brotherly  love  the  law  of  life  for  Christian  so- 
ciety. 

The  men  who  wanted  to  be  Christ-like  in  poverty,  in 
self-denial  and  self-sacrificing  devotion  to  their  fellow-men, 
followed  Francis  in  his  manner  of  living.  The  women, 
under  St.  Clara,  or  Clare,  the  townswoman  of  Francis,  emu- 
lated the  poverty  and  virtues  of  Mary,  the  Mother  of 
Christ,  whom  He  on  the  cross  gave  to  the  fisherman,  John, 
the  son  of  Zebedee,  to  be  cared  for  as  a  mother,  homeless 
and  shelterless  as  she  was. 

Men  and  women  living  in  the  world  who  desired,  in  the 
measure  possible  to  them,  to  imitate  Christ  and  His  Mo- 
ther, and  to  bring  back  among  the  late  Christian  society 
the  brotherly  love,  the  gentleness,  the  spirit  of  prayer,  the 
tender  care  of  the  poor  and  sick,  which  the  Acts  of  the 
Apostles  describe  as  existing  in  the  first  Christian  com- 
munity in  Jerusalem,  became  members  of  the  Third  Order. 
Within  the  saint's  lifetime  it  counted  more  than  half  a  mil- 
lion of  persons  of  every  condition  of  life,  from  kings  and 
queens  to  peasants  and  shepherds.  St.  Louis,  King  of 
France,  and  his  cousin,  St.  Ferdinand  of  Castile  and  Leon, 
with  their  mothers  and  their  queens,  with  many  a  heroic 
noble  and  knight  in  their  service,  and  many  a  noble  ma- 
tron and  maiden  in  their  courts,  and  crowds  of  their  sub- 
jects, undertook  to  practise  the  evangelical  morality  and  all 


THE  BEA  UTIFUL  SPIRIT  AND  LIFE  OF  ST.  FRANCIS. 

its   divine  virtues  more  faithfully  under  the  protection  of 
that  lowly  mendicant  of  Assisi. 

Let  us  not  be  turned  aside  from  the  contemplation  of 
noble  ideals  because  men  have  failed  to  make  of  them 
permanent  and  widespread  practical  realities.  We  should 
never  effect  any  reform  or  improvement  in  our  own  lives 
or  in  the  world  around  us  if  we  allowed  ourselves  to  be 
cast  down  by  the  inconsistencies  and  failures  of  men  who 
had  begun  well  and  then  fallen  away.  Let  us  listen 
rather  to  the  men  who,  in  the  present  need  of  society 
and  the  whole  moral  world,  endeavor  to  revive  in  them- 
selves and  to  restore  wherever  their  influence  extends 
the  divine  spirit  of  heroic  perfection  which  animated 
men  long  ago,  and  which,  like  the  seeds  of  the  noblest 
plants,  God  never  allows  to  perish  utterly  from  the  face  of 
the  earth. 

Such  a  man  was  and  is  Joachim  Pecci. 

From  his  earliest  boyhood  his  feet  had  trodden  the 
bare  cloisters  of  the  Franciscan  Observantines  near  his 
mother's  home  in  Carpineto.  His  admiration  for  these 
faithful  followers  of  the  Saint  of  Assisi  had  grown  with 
his  growth.  As  a  youth,  a  priest,  the  governor  of  prov- 
inces, the  honored  diplomat,  the  bishop,  and  the  cardinal, 
he  had  known  these  Franciscan  lovers  of  evangelical  pov- 
erty— known  them  thoroughly — and  his  veneration  had 
gone  on  increasing.  The  Third  Order  of  Seculars,  or  per- 
sons living  in  the  world,  had  become  extinct,  or  nearly  so, 
under  the  joint  action  of  Voltairean  ridicule  and  revolu- 
tionary violence.  Honestly,  conscientiously  Joachim  Pecci 
believed  that  to  revive  the  spirit  and  the  rule  of  St.  Francis 
of  Assisi,  to  propagate  this  Secular  Third  Order  among  all 
ranks  of  the  Christian  people,  would  be  the  providential 
means  to  renew  the  face  of  the  earth. 

We  believe  that  in  our  day  practice  is  more  potent  than 
preaching,  example  than  mere  profession.  We  believe,  if 
ever  the  countries  of  ancient  Christendom  are  brought 
back  to  Christ,  it  must  be,  not  by  the  eloquence  of  a  St. 
Paul,  a  St.  Bernard,  or  a  Bossuet,  but  by  diviner  examples 


276  LIFE  OF  LEO  X11I. 

of  poverty,  purity,  self-denial,  and  self-sacrifice  than  even 
those  beheld  in  the  Apostolic  age. 

Men  who  remember  how  prepotent  feudalism  had 
marred,  at  the  end  of  the  twelfth  and  the  beginning  of 
the  thirteenth  century,  the  fairest  fruits  of  the  Christian 
culture  of  preceding  ages,  and  how  military  might,  vio- 
lence, and  licentiousness  were  the  only  forces,  apparently, 
which  controlled,  or  aimed  at  controlling,  European  society 
will  not  be  astonished  that  Providence,  in  seeking  to  re- 
store the  Christian  ideal,  should  have  inspired  the  Poverelto 
of  Assisi  to  become  in  his  life  and  person  a  living  image  of 
the  Divine  Master. 

We  have  followed  his  footsteps  in  Italy  and  Spain  from 
the  hills  above  Bologna  to  Florence  and  Rome,  and  from 
Rome  to  Barcelona  and  all  along  the  pilgrim's  road  to  Ga- 
licia  and  the  sepulchre  of  St.  James.  Men  like  Charles 
Dickens  and  Ruskin  can  understand  and  appreciate  the 
beautiful  legends  which  weave  themselves  around  the  su- 
pernatural life  of  a  man  so  divine — how  the  blood  gushing 
from  his  self-imposed  austerities  and  falling  on  the  thorny 
shrubs  in  winter,  forthwith  was  transformed  into  flowers  of 
supernal  hue  and  fragrance ;  how,  in  the  province  of  Vich, 
a  barren  tract  to  which  the  saint  withdrew  to  meditate  and 
pray  became  a  land  of  flowers,  while  the  fountain  at  which 
he  cooled  the  ardor  of  the  consuming  fire  within  him  be- 
came a  fount  of  healing  waters.  No  wonder  that  beneath 
those  feet,  which  he  yearned  to  stretch  out  to  the  nails 
that  pierced  his  Master's,  our  earth,  athirst  for  Christ-like 
holiness,  meekness,  and  charity,  should  spontaneously  put 
forth  flowers  unseen  before. 

We  need  suck  men  now ;  we  shall  need  them  more  in 
the  evil  days  the  world  has  to  pass  through  till  from  out 
the  extremity  of  ill  shall  come  the  salutary  reaction. 


THE  LAST  YEAR  IX  PERUGIA, — I.  CARDINAL,  PECCI  AT  THE 
GOLDEN  JUBILEE  OF  PIUS  LX. 

HE  Catholic  world  is  not  likely  to  forget  that  the 
year  1877  was  celebrated  in  both  hemispheres  as 
the  Episcopal  Jubilee  of  Pius  IX.  He  had  been  consecrat- 
ed bishop  in  Rome  on  June  3,  1827.  His  fiftieth  anniver- 
sary, in  spite  of  the  occupation  of  the  Eternal  City  by  the 
Piedmontese,  was  celebrated  there  with  a  solemnity  and  an 
enthusiasm  such  as  even  Christian  Rome  had  never  wit- 
nessed. 

Foreseeing  the  spontaneous  and  irresistible  outburst  of 
Catholic  sentiment  all  over  Italy  on  the  coming  anniver- 
sary, the  revolutionary  Parliament  sitting  in  Rome  brought 
in  "*  The  Clerical  Abuses  Bill,"  enacting  the  severest  pen- 
alties against  all  persons,  clergymen  especially,  of  every 
grade,  who  under  any  circumstances,  in  public  or  in  pri- 
vate, should  give  utterance  to  words  censuring  the  acts  of 
the  government.  A  priest  in  the  confessional  or  called  to 
administer  the  last  sacraments  to  the  dying,  by  the  mere 
refusal  of  absolution  to  the  worst  criminals,  to  the  plunder- 
ers of  the  Church  or  the  direct  authors  of  the  worst  ca- 
lamities under  which  she  was  suffering,  would,  on  the  com- 
plaint of  the  false  penitent,  be  liable  to  fine,  imprisonment, 
or  banishment  from  Italy.  It  was  one  of  the  objects  of  this 
law,  as  its  authors  did  not  hesitate  to  avow  in  the  legisla- 
ture, that,  although  they  could  not  punish  the  Pope  himself 
without  violating  the  Law  of  Guarantees,  yet  they  could 
punish  any  inferior  ecclesiastic  who  should  dare  to  publish 
or  print  the  Pope's  utterances  censuring  the  acts  of  the 
government. 

The  celebration  of  the  Golden  Jubilee  all  over  Italy, 


2/8  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

together  with  the  manifestations  and  addresses  which  it 
would  give  rise  to,  naturally  would  afford  the  enemies  of 
the  Papacy  the  opportunity  of  reaping  a  rich  harvest  in 
fines  and  vindictiveness. 

But  Pius  IX.,  though  grieving  for  the  consequences  of 
this  tyrannical  law  to  the  Italian  clergy,  was  not  to  be  in- 
timidated by  the  threats  of  the  triumphant  Revolution. 
In  the  consistory  of  March  12  he  denounced  the  bill  and 
the  government  to  the  whole  civilized  world.  The  infirmi- 
ties which  bent  his  aged  frame  could  not  bend  that  in- 
vincible spirit  of  his.  "  By  this  law,"  he  says  to  the  as- 
sembled cardinals,  and  through  them  to  all  Christendom, 
"  the  words  and  writings  of  every  description  uttered  by 
the  ministers  of  the  altar  in  the  discharge  of  their  sacred 
office,  and  expressing  disapproval  or  censure  of  any  act  or 
decree  of  the  civil  authorities,  though  such  act  or  decree 
may  be  never  so  opposed  to  the  laws  of  God  or  of  His. 
Church,  are  equally  liable  to  punishment." 

The  ordinary  civil  courts  alone  have  a  right  to  decide 
whether  or  not  a  priest  is  justified  in  refusing  absolution 
to  a  penitent  under  sentence  of  excommunication,  even 
when  the  priest  has  no  power  to  absolve  him,  or  whether 
he  may  rightly  withhold  the  sacraments  from  the  sick  and 
the  dying,  irrespective  of  the  dispositions  and  fitness  of 
these  to  receive  them.  But  this,  as  well  as  the  penalties, 
imposed  on  all  who  dare  to  promulgate  the  judgments 
of  the  Holy  See  on  its  own  inalienable  rights  and  the 
wrongs  it  endures  at  the  hands  of  the  oppressor,  was  in- 
tended to  intimidate  the  Sovereign  Pontiff  himself  in  the 
exercise  of  his  spiritual  power. 

"  How  is  it  possible  for  us,"  Pius  IX.  exclaims  in  his 
righteous  indignation,  "  to  govern  the  Church  under  the 
domination  of  a  power  which  continually  deprives  us  of 
the  means  and  protection  needed  for  the  discharge  of  our 
apostolic  office?  .  .  .  We  cannot  sufficiently  wonder  that 
men  can  be  found  who  .  .  .  endeavor  to  have  the  world 
believe,  and  to  persuade  the  popular  masses,  that  the  pre- 
sent position  of  the  Sovereign  Pontiff  in  Rome  is  such 


THE  GOLDEX  JUBILEE  OF  PIUS  IX.  279 

that,  even  situated,  as  he  is,  under  the  domination  of  an- 
other power,  he  .is  in  the  enjoyment  of  full  freedom,  and 
is  able  peacefully  and  unrestrictedly  to  discharge  the  duties 
of  his  spiritual  primacy." 

There  was  a  disposition  in  government  and  parliamen- 
tary circles  to  oppose  efficacious  obstacles  to  the  approach- 
ing celebration  in  Rome  by  closing  the  entrance  of  Italy 
to  the  numerous  bands  of  pilgrims  from  foreign  lands,  and 
to  forbid  the  railway  companies  from  transporting  Italian 
pilgrims  and  deputations  to  Rome.  In  that  city  itself  the 
anti-clerical  clubs  only  demanded  that  the  government 
should  look  on  without  interfering  while  they  took  on 
themselves  to  prevent  or  to  mar  all  displays  in  honor  of 
the  Pope's  anniversary.  But  although  in  some  places  pil- 
grims and  deputations  were  treated  somewhat  roughly,  the 
movement  was  too  general  and  too  mighty  to  be  stopped 
all  of  a  sudden ;  besides,  the  influx  of  strangers  was  to 
bring  to  the  railroad  companies  and  to  Rome  itself  too 
bountiful  a  harvest  not  to  be  acceptable  in  the  great 
penury  of  gold  from  which  Italy  and  the  government 
were  suffering. 

So  self-interest  prevailed  over  political  passion  and  anti- 
Christian  intrigues,  and  the  Golden  Jubilee  ran  its  course 
of  unparalleled  enthusiasm. 

By  a  singular  and  unusual  oversight  no  mention  is  made 
in  the  narrative  in  another  work  of  the  Author*  of  the 
part  taken  in  the  celebration  by  the  hierarchy  of  the  Papal 
States — the  ^Emilia,  the  Marches,  and  Umbria.  And  yet 
among  the  imposing  pageants  which  succeeded  each  other 
in  the  Vatican  in  June,  1877,  none  exceeded  in  importance 
and  effect  that  in  which  figured  the  cardinals,  the  arch- 
bishops and  bishops  belonging  to  the  former  States  of  the 
Church,  having  at  their  head  the  venerable  figure  of  the 
Cardinal-Archbishop  of  Perugia. 

He  had  been  requested  by  his  colleagues  in  the  pastoral 
office  to  draw  up  and  deliver  in  their  name  the  address  of 
felicitation.     This,  for  him,  was  a  labor  of  love. 
*"  Life  of  Pius  IX.,"  New  York,  1877. 


2  80  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

On  the  morning  of  the  3d  of  June  Pius  IX.  could  have 
imagined  that  the  bishops  of  all  Italy  surrounded  him,  for 
all  who  could  come  and  were  privileged  to  be  tnere  on  the 
occasion  accompanied  the  glorious  gathering  at  whose  head 
shone  Cardinal  Pecci.  This  assemblage  was  the  chief  and 
central  one  in  the  long  series  of  the  Jubilee  demonstrations. 
One  might  have  thought  that  the  entire  episcopate  of  Italy 
was  there,  and  that  its  spokesman  was  the  Archbishop- 
Bishop  of  Perugia,  every  one  of  whose  public  utterances 
for  the  twenty  past  years  had  sounded  like  a  trumpet-note 
through  the  Peninsula,  warning  pastors  and  people  to  pre- 
pare for  the  impending  battle  with  Revolution  and  anti- 
Christian  corruption.  So  there,  at  the  head  of  cardinals, 
archbishops,  and  bishops,  stood  the  white-haired  prelate 
who  was  to  be  called  Leo  XIII.  and  Lumen  in  Ccelo  ere 
another  June  had  come  with  its  flowers,  and  who  now 
poured  out  the  warm  tribute  of  his  soul  at  the  feet  of 
Pius  IX.,  Crux  de  Cruce,  already  in  the  last  agony  of  his 
long  crucifixion.  Let  us  listen  : 

"  MOST  HOLY  FATHER  :  Surely  it  is  by  an  admirable 
design  of  God's  providence  that  while  under  your  Pon- 
tificate the  worst  enemies  of  the  Catholic  Church  and  of 
her  Divine  Head,  Christ,  were  permitted  to  wage  against 
both  the  most  bitter  war  which  the  memory  of  man  can  re- 
call in  the  past  ages  as  well  as  in  the  present,  we  should, 
on  the  other  hand,  be  given  to  behold  a  succession  of 
happy  events  bringing  into  the  most  prominent  light  the 
ardent  love  of  the  Christian  world  for  the  Church  and  the 
most  faithful  obedience  toward  the  Apostolic  Chair. 

"  More  than  that,  the  more  skilfully  devised  were  the 
plans  of  our  adversaries,  the  more  successful  did  the  as- 
saults of  the  revolutionary  sects  prove — thanks  to  the  con- 
nivance or  the  aid  of  the  temporal  powers — the  more  close- 
ly, on  the  other  hand,  did  faith  and  charity  draw  souls 
together  among  the  Catholic  nations,  the  nearer  did  the 
bonds  of  union  draw  the  flock  to  the  shepherd,  the  children 
to  their  parent,  the  firmer  appeared  the  faith  of  all  in  the 
Pontifical  authority,  the  more  constantly,  O  Most  Holy 


CARDINAL  PECCI  ADDRESSING  PIUS  IX.  281 

Father !  shone  forth  the  love  of  the  whole  world  for  your 
person. 

"  We  cannot  help  feeling  that  events  are  directed  to- 
ward a  happy  and  prosperous  issue  when  we  see  the  faith- 
ful of  every  land  pouring  as  pilgrim-crowds  toward  the 
Vatican,  or  laying  their  liberal  offerings  of  Peter's  Pence  at 
your  feet,  uniting  in  solemn  and  public  prayer  or  giving 
vent  in  some  other  way  to  the  common  joy,  all  striving  in 
concert  to  celebrate  the  happy  anniversary  of  that  day  on 
which,  fifty  years  ago,  God  gave  you  to  be  consecrated  a 
bishop. 

"  Therefore  it  is,  Most  Holy  Father,  that  we,  the  pas- 
tors of  your  provinces,  especially  those  of  the  Marches, 
Umbria,  and  Emilia,  and  the  flocks  confided  to  us,  can 
yield  in  fervor  to  none  both  in  our  dutiful  obedience  to 
you,  in  our  reverence  for  the  supreme  power  of  Peter,  and 
in  our  enthusiasm  in  celebrating  this  most  happy  day.  You 
were  born  in  the  Marches,  of  the  noble  blood  of  Sinigaglia  ; 
happy  Umbria  first  received  you  as  a  bishop,  and  first  of 
all  the  church  of  Spoleto  had  the  benefit  of  your  labors 
and  was  graced  by  your  virtues  ;  and,  last,  Emilia,  glorified 
by  your  pastoral  care  and  the  splendor  of  your  Roman 
purple,  sent  you  to  Rome  to  ascend  the  sublime  chair  of 
Peter. 

"  Hence,  while  in  our  own  name  we  again  and  again 
renew  to  you  to-day  the  solemn  profession  of  our  inviolable 
union  with  this  same  Apostolic  Chair  of  Peter,  and  of  our 
loving  devotion  to  your  person,  we  also  declare,  in  the 
deepest  joy  of  our  hearts,  that  both  our  priests  and  our 
people  share  with  us  this  same  solemn  profession  and 
heartfelt  sentiments.  Manifold  as  are  the  frauds  and  the 
violence  by  which  ungodly  men  unceasingly  try  to  shake 
their  constancy  in  the  Christian  religion,  they  nevertheless 
ever  remain  bound  to  you  by  unswerving  obedience,  and 
from  their  inmost  soul  accept  the  teachings  which  your 
infallible  authority  sanctions.  They  unite  with  us  in  be- 
seeching humbly  and  fervently  the  Divine  Prince  of  Pastors 
to  pour  down  on  you  with  unsparing  hand  the  fulness  of 


282  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

His  choicest  gifts,  comforting  and  directing  you  in  the  bit- 
ter trials  which  press  upon  you,  saving  and  preserving  you 
for  the  honor  and  increase  of  religion,  for  the  defence  and 
support  of  His  Church.  That  you  may  have  also  sonic 
visible  proof,  though  never  so  small,  of  the  most  dutiful 
love  and  reverence  which  we  and  they  bear  you,  we  pray 
you  to  accept,  Most  Holy  Father,  the  little  offering  they 
freely  make  to  relieve  your  own  need,  and  which  we  beg 
you  to  estimate  from  the  love  of  the  givers,  not  from  its 
material  amount. 

"  It  only  remains,  Most  Holy  Father,  that  you,  who  love 
us  all,  bestow  on  ourselves  and  on  all  the  faithful  people  of 
our  dioceses,  who  have  so  much  to  contend  with  in  the  pre- 
sent difficult  times  of  revolution,  the  Apostolic  Benedic- 
tion, which  shall  bring  them  wisdom  and  strength.  This 
we  ask  for  all  the  more  readily  that  we  have  good  reason 
to  hope  that  God,  at  your  prayer,  on  this  day  of  great  joy 
to  yourself  and  your  children,  will  pour  down  forthwith 
on  all  of  us  the  plentiful  streams  of  heavenly  blessing."  * 

Pius  IX.,  touched  not  only  by  the  sentiments  expressed 
in  this  noble  address,  but  the  dignified  and  reverent  bear- 
ing of  the  venerable  speaker,  could  not  refrain  from  ex- 
pressing his  gratification  and  his  thanks.  It  was,  indeed, 
as  if  the  churches  of  the  Marches,  of  Umbria,  and  ^Emilia, 
so  unspeakably  dear  to  him,  surrounded  him,  broken  by  ex- 
treme old  age  and  suffering,  to  lift  up  their  voices  to  bless 
him,  and  their  hands  to  pray  for  him,  their  Pontiff  and 
Parent.  The  members  of  the  episcopal  deputation  pre- 
sent also  expressed  their  sentiments  of  admiration.  But 
Cardinal  Pecci  was  little  moved  by  praise,  even  when  com- 
ing from  the  lips  of  the  most  revered  of  Popes,  and  from 
those  of  his  most  respected  brother-bishops. 

While  in  Rome  he  was  privileged  to  consecrate  the 
new  coadjutor-bishop  given  to  him  by  the  Holy  Father. 
This  was  Monsignor  Charles  Laurenzi,  who  had  been  his 
vicar-general  ever  since  1847,  sharing  his  labors,  his  solici- 

*  "  Scelta,"  p.  403. 


ATTEMPTS  TO  MAR  THE  UNIVERSAL  JOY.          283 

tude,  and  his  trials,  deserving  and  enjoying  the  Cardinal's 
unbounded  confidence.  The  episcopal  consecration  took 
place  in  the  ancient  church  of  St.  Chrysogonus,  one  of  the 
oldest  in  Rome,  situated  in  the  Transtiberine  quarter  of  the 
city,  and  the  Cardinal's  own  titular  church. 

As  the  summer  passed  away  the  crowds  of  pilgrims  con- 
tinued to  flock  into  Rome  and  to  press  onward  to  the  Vati- 
can. It  was  a  sight  which  the  Rome  of  the  Popes  had  not 
beheld,  and  may  never  again  behold.  But  the  Revolution- 
ists could  not  bear  the  sight  of  this  spontaneous  homage  of 
love  and  veneration  paid  to  an  infirm  old  man  whom  their 
usurpation  had  forced  to  confine  himself  to  the  walls  and 
gardens  of  the  Vatican.  There  was  a  tumultuous  meeting 
held  by  the  leaders  in  the  Apollo  Theatre  to  protest  against 
the  pilgrimages  and  the  presence  in  Rome  of  all  these 
strangers.  But  they  forgot  only  one  thing — that  these  men 
and  women  from  every  Christian  land  were  not  strangers  in 
Rome,  in  the  Rome  which  Christendom  and  the  Popes  had 
created,  and  which  was  the  home  of  the  Common  Parent. 
They  forgot,  too,  that  many  a  barbarous  dynasty  and  tribe 
had  ere  then  possessed  themselves  of  Rome  and  believed 
that  their  possession  of  it  would  last  for  ever.  History  has 
told  how  soon  their  throne  and  their  sway  had  vanished. 
And,  besides,  Christendom  has  not  yet  set  the  seal  of  its 
unanimous  and  formal  international  sanction  on  the  pre- 
sent usurpation.  There  are  those  who  persist  in  thinking 
that  Rome  will  be  again  the  City  of  the  Pope-King. 


II.    THE    OLD   CAMERLEXGO   AND    THE    NEW. 

Death  was  busy  among  the  most  illustrious  cardinals  in 
1877.  We  have  seen  that  while  Monsignor  Pecci  was  yet 
in  the  College  of  Nobles  one  of  his  dearest  companions 
there  was  Duke  Riario-Sforza,  afterward  Cardinal-Arch- 
bishop of  Naples.  This  descendant  of  the  great  warrior- 
chief  who  had  placed  himself  on  the  throne  of  Milan,  and 
had  been  on  the  point  of  subjecting  all  Italy  to  his  sway, 


284  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIIJ- 

was  one  of  those  men  who,  called  to  the  priesthood  by 
divine  inspiration,  justify  the  divine  choice  by  a  life  of 
supernatural  devotion  to  God  and  man.  A  Roman  by 
birth,  ranking  with  the  highest,  but  lifted  above  all  earthly 
ambitions  and  sentiments  by  his  ardent  desire  to  serve 
God,  His  Church,  and  Italy  to  the  best  of  his  power,  no- 
thing could  ever  induce  him  to  sanction  by  act  or  word  of 
his  the  designs  of  the  Italian  liberals. 

He  accepted  with  gratitude  his  appointment  to  the  see 
of  Naples,  because  he  had  been  led  to  believe  that  in  that 
city  he  would  be  free,  far  away  from  the  theatre  of  con- 
spiracies and  revolutions,  to  devote  all  his  energies,  under 
a  Catholic  conservative  government,  to  the  advancement  of 
the  spiritual  welfare  of  a  large,  needy,  and  neglected  pop- 
ulation. 

How  that  good  archbishop  labored  in  Naples;  how  he 
spent  his  fortune,  his  strength,  his  life  in  seeking  the  lost 
sheep  of  the  flock,  in  bringing  them  back  to  the  fold  and 
tenderly  caring  for  them ;  how  he  sought  out  souls  suffer- 
ing from  sin  and  sorrow,  and  lifted  them  up  into  newness 
of  life ;  how  the  poor,  the  sick,  the  plague-stricken  were 
dearer  to  him  than  children  to  their  mother — contemporary 
history  has  told.  Some  day,  perhaps,  this  holy  archbishop, 
whom  even  the  pens  of  Protestants  and  unbelievers  have 
canonized  because  of  his  unearthly  goodness,  will  receive 
the  honors  due  to  God's  acknowledged  saints.  At  any  rate, 
in  1877  this  great  and  good  man,  equally  dear  to  Pius  IX. 
and  to  Cardinal  Pecci,  was  taken  to  his  rest.  Both  the 
Pontiff  and  the  Cardinal  envied  him  while  sincerely  mourn- 
ing his  loss. 

But  "  Riario-Sforza  had  been  preceded  in  the  tomb  by 
Cardinal  Philip  de  Angelis,  Archbishop  of  Fermo,  who  had 
presided  at  the  Council  of  the  Vatican,  and  died  on  July  8. 
Of  the  other  four  cardinals  who  had  shared  with  him  the 
honor  of  presiding  over  that  august  assembly,  the  only 
ones  who  survived  the  year  1877  were  Cardinals  Bilio 
and  De  Luca,  Cardinals  Bizzari  and  Capalti  having  suc- 
cumbed during  this  year  of  Jubilee.  The  loss  of  De  An- 


CARDINAL  PHILIP  DE  ANGELIS.  285 

gelis  was  most  keenly  felt  by  the  Holy  Father.  They  were 
both  natives  of  the  Marches,  born  within  a  month  of  each 
other  on  that  same  sunny  shore  of  the  Adriatic  ;  raised  to 
the  purple,  the  one  in  1838,  the  other  in  1839;  brought 
still  nearer  to  each  other  by  their  passionate  devotion  to 
the  interests  of  the  Church  and  the  unworldly  spirit  which 
animated  their  whole  lives.  During  the  conclave  of  June, 
1846,  De  Angelis  was  the  man  to  whom  Cardinal  Mastal 
gave  his  vote,  and  Cardinal  Mastai  was  the  choice  of  De 
Angelis  for  the  dangerous  honor  of  the  Pontificate.  While 
the  one  friend  (the  Pope)  was  forced  to  seek  in  the  king- 
dom of  Naples  the  liberty  needed  to  govern  the  universal 
Church,  the  other  was  assailed  by  the  revolutionists  in  his 
residence  at  Fermo,  dragged  like  a  malefactor  to  the  pri- 
sons of  Ancona,  and  there,  during  forty  days,  subjected  to 
the  most  horrible  brutality,  attempts  having  even  been 
made  to  destroy  his  life  by  poison.  Later,  in  1860,  the 
Cardinal-Archbishop  of  Fermo  was  once  more  carried  off 
to  prison,  this  time  in  Turin,  and  endured  a  six  years' 
captivity."  * 

Such  were  the  men — great  in  everything  which  consti- 
tutes moral  grandeur — to  whom  Cardinal  Pecci,  like  the 
Pope,  was  bound  by  ties  of  a  friendship  that  is  not  all 
of  earth.  How  many  such  stood  around  Pius  IX.  in  the 
solemn  sessions  of  the  Council  of  the  Vatican ! 

How  many  on  that  memorable  morning  of  June  3,  1877, 
surrounded  the  aged  form  of  the  Pontiff,  on  whose  brow 
the  first  radiance  of  eternal  day  already  rested,  on  whose 
spirit,  amid  the  benedictions  of  the  Old  World  and  the 
New,  the  sweet  shadows  of  the  peace  everlasting  were  fall- 
ing fast  ! 

Cardinal  de  Angelis  was  one  to  whose  heroic  devotion, 
saintly  virtues,  and  tried  prudence  Pius  IX.  could  trust,  as 
to  an  own  brother,  in  the  greatest  emergencies,  the  dearest 
interests  of  the  Church.  This  unlimited  confidence  had 
induced  him  to  select  the  Cardinal-Archbishop  of  Fermo 

*  "  Life  of  Pius  IX.,"  pp.  521-22,  eighteenth  ed.,  New  York,  1878. 


286  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

for  the  important  charge  of  Camerlengo  of  the  Roman 
Church — a  charge  involving,  during  the  vacancy  of  the 
Papal  Chair,  the  supreme  authority  to  administer  the  tem- 
poralities of  the  Holy  See. 

Cardinal  Pecci's  ill-health  compelled  him  to  remain  in 
Rome  all  through  this  memorable  summer.  He  returned 
to  Perugia  toward  the  end  of  August  to  superintend  the 
last  examinations  in  the  seminary  and  to  preside  at  the 
distribution  of  premiums.  Thus  to  the  last  was  he  faithful 
to  his  old  love  for  his  church  and  the  young  clergy.  In 
the  midst  of  September  came  the  tidings  that  it  was  the 
intention  of  the  Holy  Father  to  proclaim  him  Camerlengo 
of  the  Holy  Roman  Church  in  the  approaching  consistory. 
Thus  was  he  to  inherit  the  trust  of  Cardinal  de  Angelis. 
The  letter  which  brought  him  this  announcement  also  con- 
veyed an  invitation  from  Pius  IX.  to  take  up  his  residence 
in  Rome,  leaving  Monsignor  Laurenzi  to  administer  the 
diocese  of  Perugia. 

III.    THE    SHADOW    OF    THE    CROSS    FALLS    ON    CARDINAL 

PECCI. 

The  Pope,  who  felt  that  the  end  for  him  was  nigh, 
felt  also  that  he  bequeathed  to  his  Cardinal  Camerlengo 
a  responsibility  beset  by  unprecedented  difficulties.  In 
choosing  Cardinal  Pecci  he  seemed  to  be  ratifying  the 
choice  of  the  united  bishops  of  all  Italy.  To  no  more  firm 
or  prudent  hand  could  the  direction  of  affairs  be  commit- 
ted when  his  own  last  hour  had  come. 

While  the  summer  and  autumn  of  1877  passed  slowly 
away,  the  Jubilee  still  drawing  crowds  of  pilgrims  to  the 
feet  of  PiuS  IX.,  the  strength  of  the  venerable  invalid  was 
slowly  but  surely  waning.  Winter  came,  and  the  Catholic 
world  kept  its  eyes  and  its  heart  fixed  on  those  rooms  in 
the  Vatican  where  the  self-sacrificing  Pontiff  daily  received 
his  children,  causing  himself  to  be  carried  through  their 
ranks,  blessing,  consoling,  and  strengthening  them  with 
words  which  all  treasured  ever  after  in  their  memory. 


LAST  PASTORAL  LETTERS  TO  THE  PERUG1ANS.    287 

Meanwhile,  and  undeterred  by  the  care:  of  his  new 
charge  and  the  unceasing  occupations  attached  to  his  posi- 
tion in  Rome,  Cardinal  Pecci  was  preparing  to  do  for  his 
beloved  flock  in  Perugia  what  he  had  ever  done  yearly 
since  he  had  been  their  bishop :  he  was  about  to  address 
them  for  the  Lent  of  1878  a  second  pastoral  letter  on  "The 
Church  and  Civilization."  Such  were  the  lofty  arguments 
he  chose  to  treat  in  instructing  his  people  on  the  prevalent 
errors  of  the  day,  and  the  truths  which  were  the  surest  an- 
tidote to  the  intellectual  poison. 

Now  that  we  are  acquainted  with  the  solid  Christian 
instruction  on  all  points  of  doctrine  and  practice  which 
Cardinal  Pecci  had  been  unwearied  in  giving  to  his  flock 
for  thirty-two  years,  we  can  admire  the  wisdom  of  the  man 
in  lifting  up  priests  and  people  to  the  attentive  study  of 
such  living  and  momentous  questions  as  that  which  he  un- 
dertook to  treat  in  the  three  last  Lenten  pastorals  which 
he  composed  for  them:  in  1876,  "The  Catholic  Church 
and  the  Nineteenth  Centu/y";  in  1877  and  1878,  "The 
Church  and  Civilization." 

IV.    THE    LIGHT    STILL    SHINING    BRIGHTLY    ON    PERUGIA. 

In  his  pastoral  for  the  Lenten  season,  1877,  we  have, 
both  in  the  logical  treatment  of  the  subject  and  the  sim- 
plicity with -which  the  argument  at  every  stage  is  presented 
to  the  intelligence  of  the  ordinary  peasant  and  workingman, 
a  model  for  all  churchmen  dealing  with  such  matters.  As 
to  the  exquisite  elegance  and  harmony  of  the  original  Ital- 
ian we  cannot  say  too  much. 

"  The  duty  which  our  pastoral  ministry,"  he  says,  "  has 
always  imposed  on  us  to  preach  the  truth  to  you  has  be- 
come more  pressing  at  this  moment,  because  of  your  own 
increasing  need  in  the  midst  of  an  unhappy  age.  We  must 
speak  to  you  to  enlighten  your  minds,  which  others  are 
trying  to  darken  by  fallacious  and  seductive  doctrines; 
and  we  must  put  you  on  your  guard  against  certain  say- 
ings which  are  scattered  abroad,  and  which  are  found  to  be 


288  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

dangerous  in  the  extreme.  Above  all,  we  need  to  speak  to 
you  in  order  to  do  away  with  the  confusion  which  is  so 
dexterously  introduced  in  the  popularized  ideas  that  one 
does  not  know  clearly  that  which  has  been  condemned  as 
false  from  that  which,  being  true  and  correct,  is  adopted 
as  such. 

"  Wherefore,  dearest  children,  the  war  carried  on  against 
God  and  His  Church  is  all  the  more  formidable  in  this, 
that  it  is  not  always  waged  loyally,  but  conducted  with 
fraud  and  treachery.  If  the  impious  men  who  live  in  our 
midst  would  only  speak  out  and  tell  us  what  they  are  aim- 
ing at,  our  task  would  be  a  very  easy  one ;  while,  on  the 
other  hand,  the  faithful,  perceiving  the  enormity  of  their 
guilty  intentions,  would  be  easily  dissuaded  from  lending 
an  ear  to  these  deceivers.  This,  however,  is  not  the  way 
they  go  about  their  work ;  they,  on  the  contrary,  use  terms 
which  flatter  their  hearers,  which  not  bearing  any  one  pre- 
cise meaning,  these  men  throw,  without  explaining  their 
sense,  as  food  to  the  curiosity  of  the  public.  .  .  . 

"  We  might  quote  here  many  instances  of  these  arti- 
fices ;  but,  to  mention  only  one  word  which  misbelievers 
make  such  abuse  of,  who  does  not  know  how  great  a  noise 
is  in  our  day  made  about  civilization,  as  if  between  it  and 
the  Church  there  existed  an  intrinsic  repugnance,  an  irre- 
concilable hostility? 

"  This  word,  which  in  itself  is  a  vague  term,  one  which 
those  who  use  it  are  careful  not  to  define,  has  become  a 
kind  of  scourge  which  they  hold  over  our  shoulders,  an 
engine  for  levelling  our  most  sacred  institutions,  the  means 
of  paving  the  way  to  the  most  deplorable  excesses. 

"  If  people  turn  into  ridicule  the  word  of  God  and  of 
him  who  represents  God  on  earth,  it  is  because  civilization 
requires  it. 

"  It  is  civilization  which  demands  that  a  limit  should 
be  put  to  the  number  of  churches  and  of  the  ministers  of 
worship,  and  which,  on  the  contrary,  asks  to  have  the  dens 
of  sin  multiplied. 

"  It  is  civilization  which  calls  for  theatres  without  good 


"  THE  CHURCH  AND  CIVILIZATION."  289 

taste  and  without  any  respect  for  modesty.  In  the  name 
of  civilization  they  give  usurers  liberty  to  exact  the  most 
enormous  interest,  and  speculators  to  realize  the  most  dis- 
honest gains. 

"  It  is  in  the  name  of  civilization  that  an  immoral  press 
poisons  souls ;  that  art,  prostituting  itself,  defiles  the  sense 
with  hideous  figures,  and  thus  opens  up  the  way  to  corrupt 
the  heart. 

"  All  the  while,  beneath  the  charm  of  this  spell-word, 
held  on  high  as  an  honored  banner,  the  pestilential  ideas 
it  covers  are  disseminated  freely,  and  between  the  loud 
clash  of  ideas  and  the  noise  which  confuses,  and  deafens 
this  impression  is  produced  :  that  we  are  to  be  blamed  if 
civilization  does  not  spread  more  rapidly  and  does  not  rise 
to  more  splendid  destinies. 

"  Hence  the  beginning  of  that  struggle  (Kulturkampf) 
which  its  authors  call  the  battle  for  civilization,  but  which 
with  greater  propriety  should  be  called  the  violent  oppres- 
sion of  the  Church." 

In  the  pastoral  of  1878,  addressed  from  Rome  to  his 
beloved  flock,  his  deeply  cherished  attachment  for  them 
breaks  forth,  as  it  were,  against  his  will.  He  is  about  to 
begin  his  sixty-ninth  year ;  is  it  not  time  for  him  also  to 
lay  down  the  burden  of  care  he  has  borne  so  long,  instead 
of  contemplating  with  dread  the  possibilities  of  the  future? 
He  says  to  his  Perugians : 

"  Closely  connected  with  you,  as  we  have  been,  during 
all  these  long  years  by  the  holy  bonds  of  the  pastoral  min- 
istry, and  by  mutual  relations  which  have  ever  begotten  an 
interchange  of  affectionate  sentiments,  we  feel  now,  dearest 
children,  how  heavy  is  the  weight  of  a  separation  which, 
however  justified  by  reasons  the  most  imperative,  is  still 
grievous  to  us.  In  this  state  of  mind  we  look  forward,  as 
you  can  well  imagine,  with  no  little  satisfaction  to  the  near 
approach  of  the  holy  season  of  Lent,  when  we  can  break 
our  enforced  silence  and  address  you  words  of  pastoral  in 
struction. 

"  Since,  therefore,  we  may  not  return  to  your  midst  in 


LIFE  OF  LEO  XI I r. 

person,  we  do  so  by  this  letter,  in  order  to  converse  with 
you  and  to  gather  mutual  comfort  from  the  interchange  of 
our  common  sentiments  of  faith.  These  are  the  consola- 
tions which  God  keeps  in  store  for  bishops  to  make  up  for 
much  sorrow  and  bitterness.  For  what  can  be  more  grate- 
ful to  us  than  to  hold  converse  with  the  flock  who  are  our 
crown,  our  dearest  joy;  than  to  speak  to  them  of  God,  ami 
of  His  Christ,  and  of  His  holy  Church,  of  the  duties  of 
our  religion  and  of  its  immortal  hopes,  and  to  repeat  to 
them  the  apostolic  words :  '  Therefore,  my  dearly  beloved 
brethren  and  most  desired,  my  joy  and  my  crown,  so  stand 
fast  in  the  Lord,  my  dearly  beloved  '  ?  " 

Christian  Rome — and  in  Christian  Rome  the  Vatican — 
offered,  as  the  year  1878  dawned  upon  the  world,  as  Janu- 
ary slowly  passed  away  and  found  the  gentle  spirit  of  Pius 
IX.  still  hovering  on  the  very  borders  of  the  peace  eternal, 
a  spectacle  never  before  beheld.. 

"  Around  the  aged  Pontiff  had  been  dropping  off  clay- 
by  day  the  men  whom  he  had  most  loved  and  trusted, 
who  had  passed  with  him  through  the  flood  and  the  flame. 
He  and  three  or  four  members  of  the  Sacred  College  \\vn- 
left  standing,  all  stripped  and  scarred  by  storm  and  light- 
ning, like  those  venerable  trees  of  the  Californian  foivst 
towering  on  the  hillside  in  their  weird  and  solitary  gran- 
deur, while  at  their  feet  lie  the  fallen  trunks  of  their  for- 
mer contemporaries,  and  around  stand  a  younger  growth,- 
dwarfed  only  into  comparative  inferiority  by  their  giant 
elders,  the  sole  survivors  of  a  remote  age. 

"  Not  long,  however,  in  spite  of  the  fervent  prayers  of 
the  Catholic  world,  did  the  heroic  old  man  survive  the 
friends  of  his  youth  and  his  intrepid  associates  in  peril 
and  persecution.  The  joys  which  flooded  his  soul,  as  well 
as  the  cruel  apprehensions  caused  by  the  steady  triumph 
of  extreme  and  undisguised  radicalism  in  the  Italian  cabi- 
net, much  more  than  the  superhuman  fatigues  of  the  Jubi- 
lee receptions,  were  too  much  for  a  man  in  his  eighty-sixth 


year." ' 


*The  Author's  "Life  of  Pius  IX.,"  eighteenth  edition,  p.  522. 


DEA  Tff  OF  PI  US  /X, 

Conspicuous  among  the  few  venerable  cardinals  who 
thus  gathered  around  the  couch  of  the  long-lived  Pontiff, 
the  most  trusted  and  not  the  least  beloved  was  the  Cardi- 
nal Camcrlengo.  Death  had  come  to  close  the  eyes  of  the 
weary  old  man,  for  whom  the  long  Pontificate  of  thirty- 
two  years  had  been  little  less  than  the  agony  of  a  pro- 
longed martyrdom.  He  had  almost  designated  his  succes- 
sor to  the  choice  of  the  Sacred  College. 

And  when  this  death  had  happened  Cardinal  IVcci  had 
not  yet  concluded  the  pastoral  letter  quoted  a  few  pages 
luck.  He  hastened  at  once,  while  his  own  soul  was  under 
the  effect  of  this  saintly  ending  to  an  eventful  life,  to  con- 
clude his  Lenten  instruction,  dating  it  from  the  loth  of 
February. 

"And  here,  dearest  children,"  he  says,  '•  having  come  to 
this  point,  our  heart  must  give  vent  to  the  grief  which  op- 
presses it,  having  to  recall  to  your  mind  the  sad  even* 
which  has  plunged  the  Catholic  world  in  mourning,  and 
has  befallen  us  at  a  time  when  the  evils  heaped  on  the 
Church  were  at  their  heaviest.  When  I  began  to  write 
this  letter  I  was  far  from  thinking  that  our  glorious  Pont  iff 
and  most  loving  Father  would  be  so  suddenly  snatched 
away.  I  was  hoping,  on  the  contrary,  that  he  would  be  re- 
stored to  better  health,  that  I  might  once  more  ask  his 
Apostolic  benediction  for  you,  and  beg  you  in  return  to 
pray  for  your  chief  and  parent.  God  in  His  designs  has 
deemed  it  better  that  it  should  not  be  so.  He  has  has- 
tened for  His  servant  the  reward  merited  by  the  long  and 
precious  labors  undergone  for  the  Church,  our  common 
mother,  by  his  immortal  deeds,  by  the  sufferings  endured 
with  such  constancy,  dignity,  and  firmness. 

44  Dear  fellow-laborers,  do  not  forget  to  make  mention, 
in  the  Holy  Sacrifice,  of  this  soul  in  which  God  had  print- 
ed so  vivid  an  image  of  Himself.  Speak  to  your  flocks  of 
his  merits,  and  tell  them  how  much  this  great  Pope  had 
done  not  only  for  the  Church  and  for  souls,  but  also  to 
promote  the  reign  of  Christian  civilization.  ...  I  beseech 
you,  dearest  brethren  and  beloved  children,  to  ask  earnestly 


LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 


of  God  to  grant  soon  a  Head  to  the  Church,  and  to  cover 
him  when  he  is  chosen  with  the  -shield  of  His  power,  in 
order  that  the  Bark  of  Peter  may  be  safely  guided  through 
the  surging  waters  to  the  wished-  for  haven." 


PART  FOURTH. 


THE  PONTIFICATE.— LUMEN  IN  CCEI.O. 


293 


CHAPTER  XIX. 

THE   CONCLAVE— LEO   XIII. 

ONE  of  the  last  acts  of  Pius  IX.  was  a  solemn  pro- 
test sent  in  his  name  by  the  Secretary  of  State, 
Cardinal  Simeoni,  to  the  representatives  of  the  Holy  See 
at  the  various  courts.  It  bore  the  date  of  January  17, 
1878,  the  eighth  day  after  the  death  of  King  Victor 
Emmanuel  in  the  Quirinal  Palace.  Umberto  I.  had  suc- 
ceeded to  the  throne  thus  founded  by  the  Revolution  and 
placed  in  the  habitual  residence  of  the  Popes.  The  Pon- 
tiff, who  was  so  soon  to  follow  the  persecutor  and  spoliator 
to  the  judgment-seat,  and  who  was  so  conscious  of  his 
dread  nearness  to  it,  protested  in  this  document  "  that  he 
maintained  intact,  as  against  the  iniquitous  spoliation,  the 
right  of  the  Church  to  her  most  ancient  domains."  This, 
he  said,  was  for  the  purpose  of  removing  all  ground  for 
present  or  future  misinterpretations  or  doubts  concerning 
the  pretension  set  forth  by  the  successor  of  the  late  king 
"  in  taking  the  title  of  King  of  Italy  to  sanction  the  spolia- 
tion already  consummated." 

To  all  who  have  read  of  the  fatherly  and  merciful  spirit 
manifested  by  the  venerable  Pontiff  not  only  when  the 
tidings  of  the  mortal  illness  of  the  king  reached  the  Vati- 
can, but  when  all  were  startled  by  the  announcement  of  his 
death,*  the  thought  cannot  occur  that,  by  so  protesting  in 
the  face  of  all  the  Powers  of  Christendom,  the  dying  Vicar 
of  Christ  was  animated  by  any  feeling  of  personal  resent- 
ment. Such  feelings  were  alien  to  the  gentle,  loving,  and 
Christian  spirit  of  the  all  forgiving  Pius. 

The  protest  was  the  act  of  one  who,  having  received  in 
trust,  on  his  election  to  the  Papal  Chair,  the  temporalities 

*  See  "  Life  of  Pius  IX.,"  eighteenth  edition,  New  York,  pp.  527-28. 

295 


296  LIFE  of  LEO  xn i. 

guaranteeing  its  sovereignty  and  thereby  its  independence, 
felt  bound,  as  he  was  to  appear  before  Christ  Himself  to 
render  an  account  of  that  trust,  to  assert  more  solemnly 
that  he  was  suffering  violence  at  the  hands  of  the  oppres- 
sor, and  that  he  persisted  with  his  dying  breath  in  asserting 
the  imprescriptable  right  of  the  Church.  His  coronation 
oath  had  bound  him  to  transmit  the  patrimony  of  the  Holy 
See  intact  to  his  predecessor.  To  protest  was  all  that  he 
now  could  do  in  the  face  of  overpowering  might. 

No  sooner  had  the  ocean  telegraph  flashed  the  news 
of  the  death  of  Pius  IX.  all  over  America  than  even  the 
Protestant  press  began  to  ask  the  questions :  "  Will  the 
Piedmontese  government  not  take  possession  of  the  Vati- 
can and  St.  Peter's  ? "  "  Will  they,  can  they,  allow  the 
cardinals  to  assemble  freely  in  conclave  and  elect  a  suc- 
cessor to  Pius  IX.  ? "  "  Is  not  this  a  golden  opportunity 
for  the  kingdom  of  Italy  to  secure,  even  at  the  risk  of 
a  schism,  a  Pope  of  its  own — one  disposed  to  recognize 
and  sanction  accomplished  facts — and  thus  put  a  stop 
to  the  ruinous  conflict  between  the  two  powers  in  the 
Peninsula?" 

Indeed,  for  months  before  January  7,  1878 — the  date  of 
Pius  IX. 's  decease — such  questions  as  these  were  seriously 
discussed  by  the  public  journals  on  both  sides  of  the  At- 
lantic. Many  Catholics  were  fearful  lest  some  such  steps 
might  be  taken  by  the  new  masters  of  Rome ;  nor  were 
there  wanting  in  the  Italian  press  and  among  Italian  states- 
men those  who  would  enthusiastically  applaud  such  steps 
and  give  effective  aid  toward  their  consummation. 

Ay,  that  would  have  been  the  consummation  of  the 
cherished  designs  and  deeply  laid  plans  of  Mazzini,  of  the 
anti-Christian  Revolution  of  which  he  was  the  prophet  and 
lawgiver.  It  would  have  filled  with  joy  inexpressible  the 
soul  of  Garibaldi  and  of  the  men  who  had  steeped  them- 
selves in  blood  and  sacrilege  to  blot  out  the  Catholic 
religion  from  the  soil  of  Italy. 

Be  it  said,  too,  without  any  offence  to  the  great  mass 
of  English  and  American  Protestants  who  had  clapped 


WOULD  THE  CARDINALS  BE  UNTRAMMELEDI 


297 


their  hands  with  transport  and  sung  their  loud  paeans  of 
thanksgiving  when  the  Porta  Pia  was  breached  and  the 
Piedmontese  entered  Rome  and  hoisted  the  flag  of  Savoy 
on  the  Quirinal  and  Castle  Sant' Angelo,  their  exultation 
would  have  been  complete  if,  ere  the  remains  of  Pius  IX. 
had  been  cold  in  death,  that  same  cross  of  Savoy  had 
floated  from  the  topmost  point  of  the  Vatican  and  the 
dome  of  St.  Peter's. 

Legge  relates,  in  his  work  on  the  Pontificate  of  Pius 
IX.,  a  fact  which  is  eloquently  suggestive.  When,  after 
this  Pope's  flight  to  Gaeta,  a  proclamation  was  issued  by 
the  Provisional  Republican  government  in  Rome  calling  a 
Constituent  Assembly,  the  Pope,  on  January  I,  1849,  issued 
a  counter-proclamation  protesting  solemnly  against  all  acts 
tending  to  a  usurpation  of  the  temporal  power  of  the 
Holy  See.  This  was  both  his  right  and  his  bounden 
duty.  This  proclamation,  Legge  informs  us,  was  torn  down 
by  the  populace,  carried  in  procession,  and  then  buried 
with  every  circumstance  of  ignominy.  Then  a  public 
meeting  of  all  the  rascality  in  Rome  was  called,  and  the 
notorious  Cicernacchio,  the  leader  in  all  these  demonstra- 
tions, moved  a  resolution  to  the  effect  that  the  Pope  be 
then  and  there  excommunicated,  the  sentence  to  be  sent 
to  him  with  an  address  concluding  thus : 

"  When  you,  Sir  Pope,  left  the  city  by  one  gate,  the 
Bible  entered  into  it  by  the  opposite  gate,  and  now  there 
is  no  room  for  you  !  "  * 

We  know — why  remind  American  or  English  readers 
of  the  disgraceful  fact  ? — that  it  was  the  boast  of  some 
of  the  modern  Biblical  evangelists  that  the  Bible  again 
entered  Rome  in  triumph  with  the  Piedmontese  army 
through  the  breach  at  the  Porta  Pia. 

So  much  the  worse  for  the  Bible  as  these  men  regard  it. 

But  we  are  only  speaking  at  present  of  the  unaccom- 
plished purpose  of  the  Radical  Revolutionists,  and  of  the 
unfulfilled  but  ardently  expressed  wish  of  those  societies  in 
league  or  in  sympathy  with  Garibaldi. 

*  Legge,  "Pius  IX.,"  vol.  ii.  p.  139. 


298  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

The  Italian  government,  by  the  invisible  control  of  an 
overruling  Providence,  either  had  no  thought  or  no  will  to 
interfere  with  what  was  happening  inside  the  Vatican,  or 
with  the  actions  of  the  Cardinal  Camerlengo,  on  whom  it 
now  devolved  to  administer  the  Church  and  to  dispose  all 
things  for  the  election  of  another  Pope. 

His  first  determination,  when  Pius  IX.  had  yielded  up 
to  the  Redeemer  and  Judge  his  long-chastened  spirit — 
dying,  as  dies  the  humblest  Christian,  consoled  and  purified 
by  the  sacraments  of  his  faith,  confessing  his  sins  with  a 
heartfelt  and  most  touching  simplicity,  reciting,  with  a  fer- 
vor and  presence  of  mind  that  moved  to  tears  all  around 
him,  the  act  of  contrition,  of  loving  sorrow  for  all  offences 
against  the  Divitie  Majesty,  and  then  receiving  the  last  ab- 
solution— was  to  give  no  pretext  to  the  Italian  authorities 
to  cross  the  threshold  of  the  Vatican. 

The  custom,  when  the  Pope  died  in  the  Quirinal,  was 
to  have  the  corpse  lie  in  state  in  the  Pauline  Chapel,  where 
the  people  were  free  to  come  and  pray  around  the  bier. 
If  the  death  took  place  in  the  Vatican,  then  the  body  lay 
in  state  in  the  Sistine  Chapel.  But  the  Sistine  being  with- 
in the  precincts  of  the  palace — the  only  spot  over  which 
extends  at  present  the  very  uncertain  and  shadowy  sove- 
reignty left  to  the  Popes — if  the  remains  of  Pius  IX.  were 
exposed  there  to  the  public  veneration,  the  love  which  yet 
remained  so  deep  in  the  hearts  of  the  great  majority  of  the 
Roman  people,  as  distinguished  from  the  revolutionary 
multitudes  that  had  flocked  to  the  city  after  the  Piedmon- 
tese,  would  have  brought  such  throngs  to  the  Sistine  and 
through  the  Vatican  as  might  have  justified  the  municipal 
authorities  and  the  government  iii  interfering. 

Cardinal  Pecci  wisely  resolved  to  afford  no  such  pretext 
for  violating  even  the  semblance  of  sovereignty  left  to  the 
Holy  See.  He  ordered  the  remains  to  be  laid  out  in  state 
in  St.  Peter's,  taking  also  there  every  means  to  preserve 
order  and  to  cut  off  every  pretext  for  municipal  intrusion. 

The  first  official  act  of  the  Sacred  College,  assembled  in 
conclave  on  Tuesday,  February  19,  1878,  was  to  confirm  by 


FIRST  OFFICIAL  ACT  OF  THE  SACRED  COLLEGE. 


299 


their  united  protest  that  issued  by  Pius  IX.  on  January  17. 
The  cardinals  in  conclave  are  the  depositary  of  the  Papal 
sovereignty;  the  exercise  of  their  right  of  suffrage  in 
electing  the  Pope  is  only  the  use  of  that  sovereign  right. 
They  therefore  declared,  through  the  Secretary  of  State, 
to  all  the  Great  Powers: 

"  That  they  thereby  renewed  all  the  protests  and  reser- 
vations made  by  the  deceased  Sovereign  Pontiff,  whether 
against  the  occupation  of  the  States  of  the  Church  or 
against  the  laws  and  decrees  enacted  to  the  detriment  of 
the  same  Church  and  of  the  Apostolic  See " ;  all  unani- 
mously declaring  themselves  "  determined  to  follow  the 
course  marked  out  by  the  deceased  Pontiff,  whatever  trials 
may  happen  to  befall  them  through  the  force  of  events." 

This  document  was  signed  by  the  deans  of  the  three 
orders  in  the  Sacred  College — cardinal-bishops,  cardinal- 
priests,  and  cardinal-deacons. 

Every  step,  every  incident  in  the  proceedings  of  these 
days,  so  full  of  anxious  expectancy  and  half-dread,  marked 
the  diplomatic  skill,  the  prudent  tact,  and  the  conscien- 
tious sense  of  right  and  duty  characteristic  of  the  man, 
Joachim  Pecci,  who  stood  in  the  foremost  place  at  the  head 
of  his  brethren. 

It  is  customary  to  have  funeral  services  performed  in 
every  church  and  chapel  in  Rome  for  the  repose  of  the 
soul  of  a  deceased  Pope  during  nine  days  before  his  burial. 
It  is  a  touching  and  instructive  custom,  reminding  Chris- 
tians of  every  degree  that  the  higher  one's  office  on  earth 
the  greater  is  the  responsibility,  the  more  searching  and 
awful  the  judgment  to  be  undergone  before  Him  "who 
searcheth  the  hearts  and  the  loins,"  and  the  more  press- 
ing is,  therefore,  the  need  of  pleading  for  the  departed 
spirit. 

The  Vatican  Palace  and  the  space  adjoining  the  Sistine 
Chapel  are  much  less  convenient  for  the  purposes  of  a  con- 
clave than  the  corresponding  locality  in  the  Quirinal  where 
Pius  IX.  had  been  elected.  Cardinal  Pecci  resolved  that 
no  delay  that  could  possibly  be  avoided  should  take  place 


3OO  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

by  any  fault  of  his,  so  that  all  should  be  in  readiness  for 
the  conclave  at  the  end  of  the  nine  days'  devotions. 

He  summoned  the  architects  Vespignani  and  Marti- 
nucci,  and  bade  them  get  a  sufficient  body  of  workmen, 
with  the  requisite  materials,  and  set  to  work  at  once  to 
prepare  lodgings  for  all  the  members  of  the  Sacred  College, 
with  their  attendants  and  the  officers  designated  by  law. 
On  February  10  five  hundred  workmen  at  least  were  busy 
at  their  appointed  task.  Lodgings,  furniture,  all  things 
needful  even  fora  protracted  election,  were  got  in  readiness. 
For,  once  the  conclave  is  declared  in  session,  all  communi- 
cation with  the  outside  world  ceases,  and  the  door  of  the 
strictly  guarded  enclosure  only  opens  to  admit  some  tartly 
member  of  the  Sacred  College. 

The  Pontifical  laws  regulating  everything  that  regards 
this,  the  highest  body  of  electors  in  the  Church,  leave  no 
room  for  doubt  or  indecision.*  It  is  expressly  enjoined 
that  the  cardinals  present  in  Rome  shall  wait  for  ten  days 
after  the  death  of  a  Pope,  and  that  then  they  shall  enter 
into  conclave  and  proceed  to  the  election  of  a  succes- 
sor without  waiting  for  the  arrival  of  their  absent  col- 
leagues. 

On  Sunday,  February  17,  the  Novena,  or  nine  days'  de- 
votions, were  concluded  in  the  Sistine  Chapel  by  a  solemn 
Pontifical  Mass  for  the  Dead,  celebrated  in  presence  of  all 
the  cardinals.  On  Monday,  the  i8th,  the  Solemn  Mass  of 
the  Holy  Ghost  was  sung  in  the  Pauline  Chapel  in  the  fore- 
noon, and  in  the  afternoon  all  the  ceremonies  for  the  be- 
ginning of  the  conclave  were  performed. 

At  the  election  of  the  four  last  Popes,  the  conclave 
being  held  in  the  Quirinal,  Rome  being  then  governed  by 
the  Pontifical  authorities,  and  the  Sacred  College  being  free 
to  carry  out,  in  public  and  in  private,  every  part  of  the  cere- 
monial prescribed,  the  custom  was,  on  the  day  for  entering 
into  conclave,  to  proceed  in  state  in  the  forenoon  to  St. 
Peter's,  where  the  Mass  of  the  Holy  Ghpst  was  sung  by 

*  See  the  Author's  article,  "  Conclave,"  in  ihe  "  American  Cyclopaedia." 


OPENING  OF  THE  CONCI.A  VE.  30  I 

the  cardinal  dean  of  the  Sacred  College,  and  a  sermon  was 
delivered  reminding  the  electors  of  their  duty  to  consider 
the  divine  glory  and  the  good  of  the  universal  Church  as 
their  guiding  motive  in  what  they  were  about  to  under- 
take. 

They  then  went  in  state  to  the  Quirinal.  It  was  an  im- 
pressive scene.  The  cardinals  had  laid  aside  the  usual  scar- 
let robes  for  purple,  the  sign  of  mourning.  The  necessary 
attendants  of  the  electors  opened  the  march ;  after  them 
came  the  Papal  choir  singing  the  hymn  Veni,  Creator  Spiri- 
tus.  A  master  of  ceremonies,  bearing  aloft  the  Papal  cross, 
preceded  the  members  of  the  Sacred  College,  who  advanced 
in  the  order  of  their  dignity  and  seniority.  They  were  fol- 
lowed by  the  prelates  and  officials  taking  part  in  the  con- 
clave. 

The  governor  of  Rome  walked  by  the  side  of  the  car- 
dinal dean,  the  people  lining  the  streets  and  joining  in  the 
sacred  chants  invoking  the  divine  light  on  the  Papal  elec- 
tors. 

Of  course,  on  that  Monday  morning,  February  18,  1878, 
there  was  no  procession  to  St.  Peter's,  no  solemn  High 
Mass  sung  beneath  its  sublime  dome  to  call  down  the  di- 
vine blessing  on  the  men  about  to  give  a  Pope  to  the 
Church,  and  no  return  in  state  to  the  Quirinal.  The  Qui- 
rinal was  in  the  hands  of  the  deadliest  foes  of  the* Papacy. 

The  solemn  Mass  celebrated  to  call  down  the  aid  of  the 
Holy  Spirit  was  sung  within  the  Vatican,  in  the  Pauline 
Chapel.  Cardinal  Amat,  the  dean  of  the  Sacred  College, 
was  borne  in  a  litter  up  the  grand  staircase  of  the  palace, 
and  from  the  Pauline  Chapel  to  his  sick-bed  within  the 
conclave  enclosure,  and  his  sick-bed  he  left  not  till  borne 
back  again  to  his  residence,  the  election  over.  Another 
cardinal,  Morichini,  was  but  little  better;  he  had  to  be 
supported  by  two  assistants  as  he  slowly  and  painfully 
mounted  the  palace  stairs.  And  Cardinal  Catterini,  the 
head  of  the  Order  of  Deacons,  was  only  kept  up  and  en- 
abled to  take  part  in  the  proceedings  by  his  indomitable 
will. 


3O2  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

They  were  no  ordinary  body  of  men,  these  sixty-one 
cardinals  who  met  that  morning  in  the  Pauline  Chapel. 
Three  only  of  the  entire  body  of  electors  were  missing — 
Cardinal  Broussais  de  Saint-Marc,  who  was  lying  at  death's 
door;  Cardinal  Cullen,  Archbishop  of  Dublin,  detained  at 
first  by  illness,  and  who  hastened  to  Rome  only  to  find  the 
Pope  elected ;  and  the  sole  American  cardinal,  McClos- 
key,  Archbishop  of  New  York,  who  was  on  his  way,  but 
only  came  to  do  homage  to  the  successor  of  Pius  IX.* 

In  the  altered  circumstances  of  the  political  world,  and 
the  voluntary  or  enforced  indifference  of  the  so-called  Ca- 
tholic Powers  to  the  cruel  position  of  the  Holy  See,  it  was 
at  least  fortunate  that  the  Sacred  College  was  no  longer  to 
be  subjected  to  the  oppression  exercised  on  its  members 
in  the  last  century  and  the  preceding  ages. 

The  electors  were  thus  left  free  to  choose  the  man 
whom  they  knew  to  be  in  every  way  the'  most  worthy  and 
the  best  fitted  to  rule  the  Church.  This  freedom  of  elec- 
tion— so  often  tampered  with  by  the  house  of  Bourbon,  as 
well  as  by  all  the  other  royal  dynasties  whom  mediaeval 
feudalism  had  made  the  arbiters  of  Christendom — was  one 
of  the  precious  liberties  which  Providence  had  restored  to 
the  Church  as  the  reward  for  the  bitter  trials  of  more  than 
a  century.  Who  knows  but  that  the  perfect  independence 
of  the  Holy  See  is  only  to  be  the  outcome  of  the  present 
social  and  political  convulsions,  which,  in  upsetting  what 
remains  of  that  same  feudalism,  will  sweep  away  more 
than  one  throne,  enfranchise  the  millions  of  Italians  to 


*In  the  conclave  which  elected  Leo  XIII.  were  the  following  cardinals  : 
Amat,  Di  Pietro,  Sacconi,  Guidi,  Bilio,  Morichini,  Schwarzenberg,  Pecci, 
Asquini,  Carafa  di  Tiaetto,  Donnet,  Antonucci,  Panebianco,  De  Luca,  Pitra, 
De  Bonnrchose,  Von  Uohcnlohe,  Bonaparte,  Fcrrieri,  Berardi,  Moreno, 
Monaco  la  Valletta,  Moraes  Cardoso,  Rrgnier,  Chigi,  Franchi,  Guibert, 
Orcglia  di  Santo  Stefano,  Simor,  Martinelli,  Antici  Mattel,  Giannclli,  Le- 
dochowski,  Manning,  Dechamps,  Simeoni,  Bartolini,  D'Avanzo,  Franzclin, 
Benavides  y  Navarrete,  Apuzzo,  Garcia  Gil,  Howard,  Para  y  Rico,  Cave- 
rot,  Di  Canossa,  Serafini,  Miha'ovitz,  Kutschker,  Parocchi,  Moretti,  Ca- 
terini,  Mertcl.  Consolini,  Borromeo,  Randi,  Pacca,  Nina,  Sbarretti,  Fal- 
loux  du  Coudray,  Pellegrini. 


PRELIMINARY  CEREMONIAL. 


303 


whom  the  Revolution  just  accomplished  has  refused  the 
right  of  honest  suffrage,  and  enable  the  majority  of  a  peo- 
ple not  yet  dechristianized  to  make  the  Vicar  of  Christ 
freer  than  in  the  days  of  the  first  or  the  tenth  Leo  ? 

So  thought  in  February,  1878,  and  so  think  to-day  some 
of  the  far-seeing  men  who  entered  the  conclave  which  gave 
to  the  world  Leo  XIII. 

The  sixty-one  Princes  of  the  Church  who  from  the 
Pauline  Chapel,  the  Mass  of  the  Holy  Ghost  ended,  went 
in  solemn  procession  through  the  magnificent  Sala  Regia 
(the  royal  hall  of  the  Vatican)  to  the  Sistine,  there  to  per- 
form the  first  ceremonies  of  the  conclave,  were  men  whom 
no  outside  influence  turned  aside  from  the  one  grand  pur- 
pose of  their  coming  together.  Nor  was  the  pontifical 
tiara,  in  the  present  condition  of  things,  a  crown  that  could 
tempt  even  the  worldly-minded,  if  such  there  were  among 
them.  The  Papal  cross  was  borne  aloft  before  them,  to 
tell  them  now,  as  never  before  during  many  an  age,  that 
he  whom  they  would  place  in  the  chair  of  Peter  must,  like 
Peter,  share  his  Master's  crucifixion.  The  voices  of  the  Pa- 
pal choir  made  the  storied  walls  and  ceiling  of  the  hall  re- 
sound with  the  majestic  strains  of  the  Veni  Creator,  Every 
one  joined  heartily  in  the  sublime  words  of  the  prayerful 
hymn.  No  open-air  pageant  could  equal  the  earnestness 
of  spirit  pervading  the  place  and  the  assemblage.  All 
genuflect  to  the  hidden  Presence  on  the  altar  as  they  en- 
ter the  precincts  of  the  Sistine.  The  senior  cardinal  bish- 
op, at  the  foot  of  the  altar,  chants  the  prayer  Deus,  gut 
corda  fidclium*  There  is  silence,  and  all  kneel  for  a  few 
noments.  When  all  are  seated  the  cardinal  sub-dean  reads 
iloud  the  pontifical  laws  regulating  conclaves,  and  every 
one  of  the  electors  takes  the  oath  binding  him  to  observe 
che  same.  Then  comes  the  turn  of  the  governor  of  the 
conclave,  the  prince-marshal,  the  secretary,  and  all  the  other 
officials  to  be  sworn  to  fidelity  and  secrecy. 

*  "  O  God  !  who  hast  taught  the  liearts  of  the  faithful  by  the  illuminat- 
ing grace  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  grant  us  in  the  same  Spirit  to  relish  what  is 
right,  and  thus  always  to  enjoy  the  sweetness  of  His  consolation." 


304  LIFE  OF  LEO 

This  ends  the  ceremonial  of  the  first  part  of  the  d.iy. 
The  afternoon  is  devoted  by  the  cardinals  to  the  transac- 
tion of  such  business  as  requires  immediate  despatch,  to 
the  reception  of  such  personages  as  is  customary  on  such 
occasions,  the  members  of  the  diplomatic  body  accredited 
to  the  Holy  See,  the  Roman  nobility,  and  foreigners  of  dis- 
tinction. 

With  the  Ave  Maria  closes  the  Roman  business  day. 
When  it  has  ceased  tolling  a  bell  sounds  in  the  corridors 
around  the  Sistine  Chapel,  and  the  master  of  ceremonies 
is  heard  giving  in  a  loud  voice  the  signal  for  all  strangers 
to  depart  :  Excant  omnes  !  Many  a  hearty  wish  had  been 
expressed  within  these  historic  walls,  as  the  hours  of 
the  afternoon  passed  slowly  away,  that  such  or  such  a 
cardinal  might  fill  the  place  left  empty  by  him  whose  body 
had  been  yesterday  laid  to  temporary  repose  yonder  in  St. 
Peter's. 

That  place  was  now  to  be  filled,  not  by  the  ambitious, 
but  by  the  self-sacrificing.  God  was  directing  it  all. 

Prince  Chigi,  Hereditary  Marshal  of  the  Holy  Roman 
Church  and  Guardian  of  the  Conclave,  charged,  in  virtue 
of  his  office,  with  seeing  that  all  outward  precautions  for 
the  perfect  enclosure  of  the  conclave  should  be  taken, 
went  at  the  appointed  hour  from  the  apartments  of  the 
maestro  di  camera  to  fulfil  his  duty.  It  was  a  stately  pro 
cession  in  itself :  the  prince  in  his  full  uniform,  attended 
by  his  four  captains  or  aids,  an  escort  of  the  Noble  and 
Swiss  Guards,  and  a  body  of  servants  in  state  liveries 
bearing  torches,  advance  through  the  lofty  corridors  to 
the  great  door  giving  entrance  to  the  conclave.  On  the 
threshold  of  this  entrance,  and  waiting  for  his  arrival,  was 
Cardinal  Pecci,  the  Camerlengo,  with  the  three  cardinals, 
heads  of  orders.  After  the  usual  salutations  the  great  door 
is  closed,  the  Cardinal  Camerlengo  locks  it  on  the  inside, 
the  prince-marshal  locks  it  on  the  outside  and  places  the 
keys  in  a  crimson  velvet  bag,  which  he  thenceforth  safely 
keeps  in  his  own  custody. 

This  done,  Monsignor  Ricci-Parracciani,  Governor  of  the 


PA'ECA  UT1ONS  FOR  JSOlA  TlON  AND  SECRECY.       305 

Conclave,  walks  round  the  enclosure,  examining  scrupu- 
lously every  part,  and  assuring  himself,  in  compliance  with 
his  oath  of  office,  that  there  is  no  possibility  of  commu- 
nication with  the  outside  w'orld.  An  imperfect  enclosure 
would  entail  the  nullity  of  any  choice  made  by  the  elec- 
tors, even  though  every  other  formality  had  been  strictly 
observed. 

The  Cardinal  Camerlengo  this  time  has  taken  measures 
never  before  practised.  A  kitchen  was  by  his  orders  in 
stalled  within  the  enclosure,  with  a  sufficient  number  of 
cooks  and  other  servants.  Thus  every  article  of  food  was 
prepared  within  what  was  properly  the  conclave,  and  no 
occasion  or  pretext  was  left  for  transgressing  the  sacred 
rules  of  isolation  and  secrecy  rendered  necessary  by  the 
long  experience  of  ages. 

On  both  sides  of  the  chapel,  down  along  those  walls  on 
which  true  Christian  art  has  left  its  masterpieces,  sixty-four 
lofty  screens  have  been  erected,  and  in  front  of  these  are 
seats  for  the  cardinals,  every  seat  being  numbered.  There 
is  before  each  seat  a  small  square  table  with  writing  ma- 
terials. Each  seat  is  canopied,  the  canopy  being  the  em- 
blem of  sovereignty,  and  all  these  Papal  electors  are  now 
co-equa'  sharers  in  that  sovereignty  which  they  will  place, 
undivided,  on  the  head  of  the  Pope  of  their  choice.  Four 
of  these  seats,  with  the  overhanging  canopies,  the  tables, 
and  the  screens  behind,  are  draped  in  green  cloth  ;  the 
remaining  sixty  are  draped  in  purple.  What  is  the  reason 
of  this  distinction  ? 

The  green  is  the  color  distinctive  of  the  cardinals  cre- 
ated by  Gregory  XVI.,  the  only  four  surviving  of  all  those 
who  in  June,  1846,  had  sat  among  the  electors  of  Pius 
IX.  The  other  sixty  cardinals  are  of  the  creation  of  the 
long-lived  Pius.  Think  you,  when,  but  a  few  hours  ago, 
these  few  cardinals  who  had  voted  in  the  conclave  of  1846 
found  themselves,  at  so  long  an  interval,  called  again  to 
give  to  another  the  cross  which  Pius  had  borne,  that  their 
souls  were  not  oppressed  with  the  holy  sadness  wont  to 
come,  in  the  Catacombs,  on  the  men  called  to  elect  the 


306  LIFE  OF  LEOXIIL 

successors  of  the  first  Clement,  the  first  Sixtus,  and  the 
first  Pius,  slain  by  the  rage  of  the  persecutor  ? 

There  is  no  electoral  assembly  known  to  the  civilized 
world  and  to  all  history  like  these  conclaves  in  which  are 
chosen  the  men  who  are,  like  Simon  Peter,  charged  to  feed 
Christ's  entire  flock,  and  destined,  like  Peter,  to  lay  down 
their  lives  for  the  sheep. 

Now  let  us  see  how  these  electors  go  about  their  work. 

The  morning  of  Tuesday,  February  19,  has  dawned  on 
Rome — a  balmy  morning,  rising  cloudless  and  golden-tinted 
beyond  the  Quirinal  and  the  Esquiline,  and  flooding  the 
lofty  masses  of  the  Vatican  and  the  dome  of  St.  Peter's 
with  its  first  beams.  Few  there  are,  if  any,  within  the 
Vatican  and  the  conclave  who  have  not  been  beforehand 
with  the  dawn.  And  to-day  there  is  more  need  than  usual 
in  their  being  early  before  the  mercy-seat.  And  ere  yet 
the  early  morning  hours  have  passed,  the  voice  of  the  mas- 
ter of  ceremonies,  who  is  here  the  organ  of  the  Church,  is 
heard,  as  he  passes  along  the  corridors  where  the  electors 
are  lodged,  pronouncing  the  sacramental  formula,  In  capcl- 
lam,  domini — "  To  the  chapel,  my  lords !  "  And  to  the 
chapel,  with  the  docility  of  school  boys  obeying  a  summons 
to  morning  prayer,  the  venerable  train  of  purple-robed  pre- 
lates go  at  once.  There  they  take  the  scats  allotted  to 
them,  the  Camerlengo,  Cardinal  Pecci,  taking  that  marked 
"number  nine  "on  the  Gospel  side,  and  not  far  from  the 
altar.  The  sub-dean  celebrates  a  Low  Mass,  after  which 
all  take  their  seats.  Now  begins  the  real  work  of  election. 

Three  cardinals  are  chosen  by  vote  as  scrutineers :  their 
business  is  to  examine  every  schcdnla,  billet  or  vote,  and 
to  note  and  announce  the  result.  To  each  elector  is  given 
a  schcdula,  or  voting-paper,  prepared  after  a  given  form. 
In  the  centre  he  writes  the  name  of  the  person  for  whom 
he  votes. 

At  the  top  of  the  sheet  he  writes  out  the  first  part  of 
the  form :  "  I,  N.  Cardinal  N.,  elect  for  Sovereign  Pontiff 
my  Most  Reverend  Lord  Cardinal  ." 

The  part  containing  the  name  of  the  elector  is  folded 


MANNER  OF  BALLOTING. 


307 


and  sealed,  leaving  visible  in  the  middle  space  only  the 
name  of  the  candidate  he  votes  for. 

At  the  lower  end  of  the  sheet  he  then  writes  a  text  of 
Scripture  of  his  own  choice,  which  is  also  sealed  up,  like 
his  name  at  the  top,  and  serves,  in  case  of  doubt,  to  verify 
his  vote  and  signature. 

These  papers  have  been  carefully  distributed,  one  to 
each  of  the  electors,  by  the  secretary  of  the  conclave  ;  and 
each  cardinal  having  duly  filled  the  sheet  and  sealed  it,  all 
is  ready  for  the  balloting. 

On  the  altar  stands  a  large  chalice  with  its  paten, 
made  and  consecrated  for  this  special  purpose.  The  car- 
dinals in  due  order  advance  one  by  one  in  succession  to 
the  altar-steps.  The  elector,  kneeling,  pronounces  in  a 
loud  and  distinct  voice  the  solemn  words :  "  I  call  Christ 
our  Lord,  who  will  judge  me,  to  witness  that  I  elect  the 
person  who  before  God  I  think  should  be  elected,  and 
which  I  shall  make  good  in  the  accessus."  Then,  ascend- 
ing the  platform  of  the  altar,  he  lays  the  folded  schcdula 
on  the  paten,  and  from  this  drops  it  into  the  chalice. 

While  cardinal  after  cardinal  is  thus  giving  his  vote  in 
the  chapel,  the  vote  of  Cardinal  Amat  has  been  taken  in 
his  cell,  according  to  the  strict  formalities  enjoined  by  the 
pontifical  decrees. 

All  the  bulletins  having  been  thus  deposited  in  the 
chalice,  the  three  scrutineers  ascend  to  the  altar.  One  of 
them  takes  the  chalice,  covers  it  with  the  paten,  and  shakes 
it  well.  A  second  then  takes  them  out  and  counts  them, 
one  by  one,  into  another  chalice.  There  are  exactly  sixty- 
one  ;  had  there  been  one  more  or  less  the  schcdula  must  all 
have  been  burned  and  the  balloting  must  have  been  begun 
again. 

The  scrutineers  now  take  the  second  chalice  with  its 
contents,  and  carry  it  to  a  large,  square  table  draped  in  pur- 
ple, and  so  placed  that  the  scrutineers  seated  at  it  are 
plainly  in  view  of  all  the  electors.  The  senior  scrutineer 
draws  from  the  chalice  the  first  folded  paper  his  hand 
touches,  reads  the  name  written  in  the  open  middle  space, 


308  LIFE  Of  LEO  XIII. 

then  hands  it  to  the  scrutineer  next  in  seniority,  who  also 
reads  the  name  aloud  and  takes  note  of  it.  The  third  does 
the  same — each  name  being  thus  thrice  proclaimed  aloud. 

Meanwhile  each  of  the  other  electors,  seated  at  his 
own  table,  has  a  printed  list  of  all  the  cardinals  before  him, 
and  makes  a  mark  opposite  to  the  name  thus  read  out. 
Twenty-three  times  the  name  of  Cardinal  Joachim  Pecci  is 
thus  announced.  No  other  member  of  the  conclave  re- 
ceives anything  approaching  this  number  of  votes.  As  the 
name  of  the  Camerlengo  thus  comes  up  with  ominous  fre- 
quency, he  is  seen  to  be  greatly  disturbed.  His  pale,  intel- 
lectual, ascetic  countenance  is  overcast  by  an  expression  of 
mingled  dismay  and  grief.  Still  the  number  twenty-three 
is  not  that  of  half  the  electors  present,  and  an  absolute 
two-thirds  majority  is  necessary  to  an  election. 

Thus  the  first  morning  session  of  the  conclave  passed 
without  any  result.  The  balloting  papers  are  therefore, 
according  to  rule,  burned,  and  the  blue  smoke  issuing  from 
the  slender  stove-pipe  thrust  through  a  window  in  the 
chapel  tells  the  expectant  crowd  on  the  square  of  St. 
Peter's  that  no  Pope  as  yet  has  been  chosen. 

Joachim  Pecci  with  a  heavy,  foreboding  heart  retires 
to  his  cell,  praying  fervently  that  the  burden  of  the  Pon- 
tificate may  not  be  laid  on  his  aged  shoulders. 

The  hour  for  the  afternoon  session  has  come,  and  the 
voice  of  the  master  of  ceremonies  falls  on  the  ears  of  the 
Cardinal  Camerlengo  with  a  startling  sound :  "  To  the 
chapel,  my  lords  !  " 

The  purple-robed  procession  of  venerable  men  glides 
in  silence  into  the  Sistine ;  the  silence  is  deeper  still  as  all 
kneel  before  the  mercy-seat  and  the  sub-dean  of  the  Sacred 
College  recites  aloud  the  first  verse  of  the  Vcni,  Creator 
Spiritus,  his  brother-cardinals  taking  up  the  alternate  stan- 
zas. This  invocation  to  the  Spirit  of  truth  and  light  be- 
ing ended,  they  prepare  for  the  second  ballot,  the  ceremo- 
nial being  quite  the  same  as  in  the  morning. 

During  the  recess  each  elector  has  been  reflecting  on 
the  eminent  qualities  of  the  man  for  whom  the  twenty- 


THE  SHADOW  OF   THE  CROSS. 


309 


three  votes  were  cast  in  the  forenoon.  Cardinal  Pecci  has 
been  lifting  up  his  soul  to  the  Searcher  of  hearts,  and  be- 
seeching Him  to  avert  from  himself  the  dread  honors  which 
threaten  him. 

What  have  his  brethren  been  resolving  meanwhile? 
Let  us  see. 

Cardinal  Pecci's  turn  to  vote  comes  early,  his  seat  being 
near  the  altar  and  bearing  the  number  nine.  At  length  the 
last  bulletin  has  fallen  into  the  chalice  on  the  altar,  and 
the  scrutineers  have  begun  to  announce  and  count  out 
the  names  of  those  voted  for.  Again  Cardinal  Joachim 
Pecci's  name  is  repeated  with  even  more  significant  fre- 
quency than  in  the  morning.  He  soon  has  to  mark  twenty- 
three  opposite  to  his  own  name  on  the  printed  list  before 
him ;  again  and  again  his  name  occurs  till  the  number 
reaches  thirty — one-half  of  the  electors  present ;  and  on, 
on  the  number  swells  till  it  is  increased  to  thirty-eight ! 

But  when  the  number  thirty  has  been  reached  and 
passed,  the  trouble,  the  emotion,  the  terror  of  the  humble- 
minded  Camerlengo  have  become  uncontrollable.  Cardinal 
Donnet,  Archbishop  of  Bordeaux,  whose  seat  was  next  to 
Cardinal  Pecci's,  describes  what  he  then  beheld  in  a  dis- 
course from  his  cathedral  pulpit  on  his  return  home  from 
the  conclave : 

"  I  remarked  that,  Cardinal  Pecci  hearing  his  own  name 
mentioned  so  often,  and  that  everything  pointed  to  him 
as  the  successor  of  Pius  IX.,  great  tears  rolled  down  his 
cheeks,  and  his  hand  shook  so  violently  that  the  pen  it 
held  fell  to  the  ground.  I  picked  it  up  and  gave  it  to  him, 
saying :  '  Courage  !  There  is  no  question  here  of  you  ;  it  is 
the  Church  and  the  future  of  the  world  that  are  in  ques- 
tion.' He  made  no  reply,  only  lifting  his  eyes  to  heaven 
to  implore  the  divine  assistance." " 

Thirty-eight  votes,  however,  did  not  constitute  the  two- 
thirds  majority  demanded  by  the  canons.  So  again  the 
voting- papers  were  all  burned,  and  again  the  anxious  crowd 

*  Translated  from  the  "  Cenni  Storici." 


3  I O  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

of  spectators  outside  in  the  piazza  dispersed,  their  curiosity 
unsatisfied. 

It  was  now  most  probable  that  the  majority  in  favor  of 
the  Cardinal  Camerlengo  would,  in  the  session  of  Wednes- 
day morning,  the  2Oth  of  February,  be  so  increased  as  to 
secure  his  election.  If  his  emotion  in  the  chapel  was  such, 
in  spite  of  his  long  habits  of  self-command,  that  he  could 
not  conceal  it  from  the  eyes  of  his  colleagues,  one  may 
guess  that  in  the  privacy  of  his  cell  he  gave  free  vent  to 
his  tears  and  pleaded  with  his  whole  soul  to  have  the  bit- 
ter cup  removed  from  him. 

Another  French  cardinal,  De  Bonnechose,  Archbishop 
of  Rouen,  gives  us  a  graphic  and  authentic  account  of  the 
Camerlengo's  appearance  and  behavior  on  the  morrow. 

"  Cardinal  Pecci,"  he  says,  "  to  whom  on  the  afternoon 
of  the  first  day  a  majority  of  the  votes  were  given,  looked, 
on  Wednesday  morning,  pale  and  frightened.  Just  before 
the  voting  began  he  went  to  one  of  the  most  revered  mem- 
bers of  the  Sacred  College.  '  I  cannot  control  myself,'  he 
said  ;  '  I  must  address  the  Sacred  College.  I  fear  that  they 
are  about  to  commit  a  sad  mistake.  People  think  I  am  a 
learned  man  ;  they  credit  me  with  possessing  wisdom  ; 
but  I  am  neither  learned  nor  wise.  They  suppose  I  have 
the  necessary  qualities  for  a  Pope'.  I  have  nothing  of  the 
kind.  This  is  what  I  want  to  say  to  the  cardinals.'  For- 
tunately the  other  said  to  him  :  '  As  to  your  learning,  we, 
not  you,  can  best  judge  of  that.  As  to  your  qualifications 
for  the  Pontifical  office,  God  knows  what  they  arc  ;  leave 
it  all  to  Him.'  Cardinal  Pccci  obeyed  him."* 

The  third  ballot  began  at  the  appointed  hour.  The 
Cardinal  Camerlengo's  distress  must  indeed  have  touched 
his  brethren  deeply.  It  was,  in  their  eyes,  only  a  further 
evidence  of  his  worthiness.  He  was,  they  thought,  the 
man  needed  to  guide  the  bark  of  Peter  amid  the  tempest 
then  raging — a  tempest  to  which  no  human  foresight  could 
fix  a  term.  Acknowledged  superiority  of  learning,  with 

*  Translated  from  the  "  Cenni  Storici."    - 


"  B  Y  THE  NAME  OF  LEO  XIII.'  3  I  i 

pre-eminent  virtue,  and  experienced  skill  in  managing  dip- 
lomatic intercourse  when  international  law  and  interna- 
tional relations  were  as  unsettled,  as  changing,  as  compli- 
cated as  the  direction  and  currents  of  winds  and  waves  in 
the  centre  of  a  cyclone — such  were  the  high  and  rare  quali- 
ties these  men,  assembled  to  elect  a  Pope  on  Wednesday 
morning,  the  2oth  of  February,  1878,  believed  Joachim 
Pecci  to  be  possessed  of.  So,  as  the  balloting  proceeded, 
and  he  sat  prostrated  at  first,  then  calmer,  resigned,  and 
prayerful,  his  name  was  announced  with  the  same  pro- 
phetic frequency  till  the  preceding  number,  thirty-eight, 
was  passed,  and  forty-four  votes  were  recorded  in  his  favor. 
It  was  more  than  a  two-thirds  majority,  and  left  no  room 
for  further  scrutiny.  Will  Cardinal  Pecci  accept  ?  He  sits 
mute,  pale,  with  closed  eyes,  as  if  his  spirit  were  far  away 
from  the  place  and  scene. 

The  master  of  ceremonies,  accompanied  by  the  sub- 
dean,  the  senior  cardinal  priest  and  cardinal  deacon,  ap- 
proach the  seat  Number  Nine.  "  Do  you  accept  the  elec- 
tion canonically  made  of  you  as  Supreme  Pontiff  of  the 
Catholic  Church  ? "  asks  the  sub-dean  amid  a  stillness  so 
painful  that  one  might  almost  hear  one's  heart  beat.  Car- 
dinal Pecci  rises ;  his  whole  frame  shakes  with  uncontrol- 
lable emotion.  With  a  quivering  voice,  but  steadily  and 
distinctly,  he  affirms  his  own  unworthiness.  But  seeing 
them  all  of  one  mind  and  determined  in  this  matter,  he 
bows  to  the  divine  will. 

The  sub-dean  kneels  thereupon  before  him  ;  the  mas- 
ter of  ceremonies  claps  his  hands,  and  at  this  signal  all 
the  cardinals  rise  and  remain  standing  in  homage  to  the 
new  Sovereign.  Instantly  all  the  canopies  above  the  seats 
are  lowered  save  that  above  the  seat  of  the  Pope-elect. 
The  sub-dean  then  asks :  "  By  what  name  do  you  wish  to 
be  called?"  "  By  the  name  of  Leo  XIIL,"  is  the  prompt 
answer. 

And  so  POPE  LEO  XIII.  stands  forth  in  history  to  begin 
a  new  era  for  the  Church,  for  Catholicity,  for  civilization. 

Let  us  conclude  our  narrative. 


3 1  2  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII 

The  prothonotary-apostolic  forthwith  makes  a  minute 
of  these  final  proceedings,  bearing  his  own  signature  and 
those  of  the  prince-marshal,  the  master  of  ceremonies,  the 
secretary,  and  assistant  secretaries.  While  these  docu- 
ments are  drawn  up  the  enclosures  are  removed,  the  great 
door  is  unlocked,  and  proclamation  is  made  that  the  con- 
clave is  ended. 

The  Pope-elect  allows  himself  to  be  conducted  behind 
the  altar  between  the  two  senior  cardinal  deacons.  There 
he  is  divested  of  his  cardinalitial  robes  and  clad  in  the  tra- 
ditional white  vesture  worn  by  his  predecessors — cassock, 
cincture,  rochet,  hood,  white  berretta  (or  scull-cap),  and 
stole  ;  the  scarlet  stockings  are  replaced  by  white.  The 
embroidered  shoes  alone  are  scarlet,  with  a  golden  cross. 
Meanwhile  they  have  placed  upon  the  platform  of  the 
altar  the  portable  Papal  throne — scdia  gcstatoria — and  all  is 
in  readiness  for  the  first  solemn  ceremony  of  doing  hom- 
age to  the  newly-elected  Vicar  of  Christ.  This  is  called 
"  adoration,"  from  the  Latin  word  adorarc,  the  ceremony 
by  which  the  ancient  Romans  testified  their  reverence  to 
any  superior  being  or  person,  by  turning  their  face  toward 
the  object  of  their  homage  and  carrying  the  right  hand  to 
the  lips.  Here  the  act  of  reverence  shown  is  to  the  per- 
son representing  on  earth  the  Redeemer  and  Guide  of  man- 
kind, and,  indirectly,  to  Christ  Himself 

Leo  XIII.,  attired  in  the  insignia  of  his  dignity,  now 
advances  from  behind  the  altar  and  takes  his  place  on  the 
throne.  The  sub-dean,  in  the  absence  of  Cardinal  Amat, 
is  the  first  to  approach  the  throne.  He  takes  from  the 
Pope's  hand  the  sapphire  cardinalitial  ring  and  puts  on  his 
finger  the  Ring  of  the  Fisherman  ;  then  he  bends  low  and 
kisses  the  feet  of  His  Vicar  on  earth  who  in  the  Last  Sup- 
per washed  and  kissed  the  feet  of  His  apostles;  he  then 
kisses  the  Pope's  hand,  while  Leo  in  his  turn  gives  him 
on  both  cheeks  the  kiss  of  peace.  So  do  all  the  cardinals 
in  succession,  and  then  the  officers  of  the  conclave. 

This  first  homage,  or  "  adoration,"  over,  the  senior  car- 
dinal deacon,  Catterini,  asks  the  Pope's  permission  to  an- 


JO  Y  IN  ROME.  3  I  3 

nounce  the  election  to  the  outside  world.  Ill  and  faint, 
Catterini  is  nevertheless  too  much  overjoyed  at  the  result 
of  the  election  to  allow  any  one  else  to  fulfil  the  duty  of 
first  proclaiming  it.  There  is  a  great  crowd  in  the  square 
beneath.  They  have  been  long  waiting ;  the  old  ones 
among  them  knew  at  what  hour  very  nearly  the  morning 
ballot  must  have  ended.  The  blue  smoke  had  not  made 
its  appearance  at  the  time  expected :  the  election  was  then 
an  accomplished  fact,  and  the  fever  of  expectancy  grew  and 
grew. 

At  length  on  the  interior  gallery  of  the  Vatican,  look- 
ing down  into  the  vast  nave  of  St.  Peter's  Church,  the  Pa- 
pal cross  appeared,  with  the  acolytes,  master  of  ceremonies, 
mace-bearers,  etc.,  followed  by  Cardinal  Catterini,  who, 
turning  his  face  toward  the  piazza,  where  the  crowd  were 
waiting,  pronounced  these  words  : 

"  I  announce  to  you  tidings  of  great  joy.  We  have  a 
Pope,  the  Most  Eminent  and  Most  Reverend  Joachim 
Pecci,  Cardinal  Priest  of  the  title  of  St.  Chrysogonus,  who 
hath  given  himself  for  name  LEO  XIII." 

At  this  the  bells  of  St.  Peter's  rang  forth  a  merry  peal, 
taken  up  by  all  the  churches  of  Rome,  the  tidings  of  the 
election  with  the  name  of  the  new  Pope  spreading  with 
lightning-like,  rapidity  through  Rome,  while  the  electric 
telegraph  bore  them  as  rapidly  to  every  quarter  of  the 
globe. 

No  cannon  thundered  from  the  Castle  Sant'  Angelo— 
there  the  usurping  flag  of  Savoy  floated  ;  and  no  universal 
illumination  in  the  evening  proclaimed  the  joy  of  the  citi- 
zens. The  majority  of  the  Roman  nobility  did,  however, 
illuminate  their  palaces,  and  very  many  of  the  citizens  did 
the  same,  even  though  by  so  doing  they  were  marking 
themselves  out  to  the  violence  of  the  triumphant  anti- 
clerical mob  which  sometimes  terrorized  over  the  govern- 
ment itself. 

In  the  New  World  the  name  of  Leo  XIII.  was  hailed  by 
Catholics  with  delight,  with  satisfaction  by  all.  The  fears 
of  Piedmontese  interference  were  now  found  to  be  ground- 


3  1 4  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

less.  And  then  there  was  the  old  prophecy  relating  to 
Lumen  in  Ca'lo,  to  which  even  scholars,  who  did  not  believe 
in  its  authenticity,  still  attached,  with  the  people,  a  half- 
belief  that  was  not  all  superstition. 

And,  sure  enough,  the  ancient  shield  of  the  Pecci  fami- 
ly displays  in  the  upper  part,  on  an  azure  ground,  a  star 
shedding  a  stream  of  light  on  all  beneath.  Then  there  arc 
a  tall  cypress,  the  emblem  of  strength  and  tenacity,  and 
two  flowering  lilies,  the  symbol  of  sanctity  and  learning. 

It  remains  to  see  how  Leo  XIII.  will  justify  this  pro- 
phetic trust. 

And  in  Perugia — how  was  the  news  of  Cardinal  Pecci's 
election  received  there? 

On  that  very  morning  of  February  20,  as  on  the  iQth, 
there  had  been  a  solemn  function  held  in  the  cathedral : 
a  solemn  High  Mass  pro  eligendo  Snuiuw  Pontificc  was 
celebrated,  in  accordance  with  the  prescriptions  of  the 
Church,  to  call  down  the  light  of  the  Holy  Spirit  on 
the  electors  assembled  in  conclave  at  Rome.  This  is  the 
custom  in  all  parts  of  the  Catholic  world  on  such  occa- 
sions. While  the  solemn  rite  was  carried  out  in  Perugia, 
he  who  had  passed  so  many  years  of  his  life  in  the  pic- 
turesque old  mediaeval  city  was  raised  by  the  suffrages  of 
his  peers  to  the  Supreme  Pastorship.  Not  long  after  noon 
the  whole  city  was  startled  by  an  official  telegram  from 
Rome  announcing  the  elevation  of  their  Bishop  to  the 
chair  of  Peter. 

It  was  a  sudden  and  a  most  joyous  surprise.     Instant 
ly  Monsignor  Laurenzi    issued   a   circular  announcing  the 
change  to  the  clergy  and  people  of  Perugia. 

"We  perfectly  understand,"  the  auxiliary  bishop  said, 
"  with  what  joy  this  providential  event  must  fill  our  clergy, 
so  long  the  object  of  his  wise  and  loving  care,  and  all  our 
people,  who  on  so  many  occasions  and  in  so  many  ways 
have  had  opportunities  to  admire  his  rare  gifts  of  soul,  his 
pastoral  virtues,  and  the  exalted  wisdom  of  his  administra- 
tion, whether  as  our  civil  Governor  long  ago,  or  as  the 
Bishop  of  this  illustrious  diocese,  which  he  loved  as  his 


HO W  THE  NEWS  WAS  RECEIVED  IN  PERUGIA.       3  I  5 

own  native  land,  as  a  choice  vineyard  confided  to  his  hus- 
bandry." 

The  local  Catholic  organ  spoke  of  the  event  as  follows : 
"  Our  city  heard  with  incredible  joy  of  the  exaltation  of 
our  revered  Bishop  to  the  see  of  St.  Peter.  We  have  wit- 
nessed unusual  emotion  on  this  occasion — tears  of  joy  in 
the  eyes  of  many;  persons  of  every  rank  calling  on  Mon- 
signor  Laurenzi  to  offer  their  congratulations;  all  the  bells 
sending  forth  a  glad  peal,  and  houses  illuminated.  They 
are  now  forming  a  deputation  of  distinguished  ecclesiastics 
and  laymen  charged  to  go  to  Rome  to  offer  the  Holy 
Father  the  felicitations  and  best  wishes  of  the  entire 
city."  * 

On  the  following  Sunday,  February  24,  in  the  cathedral 
of  Perugia  and  all  the  city  and  country  churches  through- 
out the  diocese,  there  was  a  solemn  service  of  thanksgiving, 
with  exposition  of  the  Blessed  Sacrament.  There  was  need 
to  thank  God  for  such  a  Pope  ;  but  there  was  still  greater 
need  to  beseech  God  to  guide  him  and  his  flock  through 
the  coming  storm  and  darkness. 

*MS. 


CHAPTER   XX. 

LEO  XIII. — LUMEN   IN   CCELO. 

"  Amen,  amen  I  say  to  thee  :  When  thou  wast  younger  thou  didst  gird 
thyself  and  didst  walk  where  thou  wouldst.  But  when  thou  shall  be  old, 
thou  shall  stretch  forth  thy  hands,  and  another  shall  gird  thee,  and  lead 
thee  whither  thou  wouldst  not." — ST.  JOHN  xxi.  18. 

mHERE  were  not  wanting  in  the  public  press,  at  the 
very  moment  when  the  civilized  world  was  startled 
by  the  sudden  election  of  Leo  XIII'.,  voices  calling  on  the 
four  Powers  once  recognized  as  Catholic — Austria,  France, 
Spain,  and  Portugal — to  veto  the  election  of  the  new  Pope; 
that  is,  not  to  recognize  him  officially.*  But  the  ambassa- 
dors of  these  Powers  near  the  Holy  See  were  among  the 
first,  on  the  day  after  the  election,  to  offer  in  the  name  of 
their  respective  sovereigns  heartfelt  homage  and  congratu- 
lation to  the  new  Pontiff.  From  every  portion  of  the  civil- 
ized world,  from  every  shore  connected  with  Rome  by  the 
electric  telegraph,  came  to  the  Vatican,  day  by  day  and 
hourly,  messages  of  felicitation,  reverence,  love,  and  thanks- 
giving. The  two  hundred  millions  of  Catholics  who, 
spread  all  over  the  globe,  look  to  the  Pope  as  the  Vicar 
of  Christ,  felt  instinctively  that  Leo  XIII.  had  been  freely, 
lawfully  chosen  by  the  Sacred  College,  and  their  hearts 
went  out  to  greet  him  at  the  beginning  of  a  reign  which 
they  knew  must  be  one  of  bitter  trial  and  struggle. 

A'< •/£•///  What  a  word  to  use  in  speaking  of  the  con- 
ditions under  which  the  long  Pontificate  of  Pius  IX.  ended 
and  that  of  his  successor  began  ! 

Pius,  in  June,  1846,  was  hailed  by  all  Rome  and  by  all 
Italy  with  such  an  outburst  of  enthusiasm  as  had  never 
been  witnessed  before.  What  a  scene  it  was  when  he,  over 
whose  head  all  thoughtful  minds  read  in  characters  of  light 

*  See  Appendix  F. 


LEO  XlII.'S  FIRST  PO  \TIFICAL  BENEDICTION.      317 

inextinguishable  Crux  dc  Cruce,  gave  his  first  solemn  bless- 
ing from  the  historic  balcony  above  the  principal  door  of 
St.  Peter's  !  What  a  delirious  scene  was  that  presented  by 
the  great  square  with  its  exultant  crowds !  But  far  more 
triumphant  was  the  "progress"  of  Pius  IX.  when  he  was 
crowned  and  went  in  solemn  procession  through  the  streets 
of  Rome  to  take  formal  possession  of  his  cathedral,  the 
church  of  St.  John  Lateran. 

Archbishop  Pecci,  just  returned  from  Belgium,  and  then 
in  his  thirty-sixth  year,  beheld  these  splendid  pageants  and 
heard  the  hymns  of  joy  which  the  multitudes  sang  day  and 
night  to  the  praise  of  their  new  Pontiff. 

Thirty-two  years  well-nigh  have  passed,  and  the  young 
Nuncio  of  1846  is  Pope  in  1878. 

Will  he  dare  to  give  his  first  Pontifical  benediction  "  to 
the  city  and  the  world" — Urbi  ct  Orbi — from  the  balcony 
above  the  portico  of  St.  Peter's? 

On  the  afternoon  of  that  memorable  2oth  of  February, 
1878,  thousands  of  the  simple  folk  of  Rome,  who  reasoned 
but  little  about  politics,  and  remembered  only  the  reign  of 
the  Popes  as  the  time  when  the  poor  man's  bread  and  wine 
were  cheap,  when  the  laboring  man's  industry  was  not 
taxed  and  his  son  was  not  taken  away  forcibly  from  the  field 
or  the  fireside,  crowded  the  square  of  St.  Peter's,  hoping 
that  Leo  XIII.  would  bless  them  from  yonder  balcony. 

Others,  the  more  knowing  ones,  in  great  numbers  too, 
filled  the  interior  of  St.  Peter's,  and  waited  patiently  in  the 
immense  nave,  their  eyes  fixed  on  the  interior  balcony 
communicating  with  the  Vatican  palace.  Many  a  heartfelt 
prayer  was  said  at  the  Shrine  of  the  Apostles,  where  ever- 
more "  flame  the  lamps  of  gold,"  or  in  front  of  the  beautiful 
Chapel  of  the  Blessed  Sacrament,  for  the  new  Pope  and  for 
the  Church,  both  beset  by  such  dangers.  The  afternoon 
wore  away,  and  it  was  a  little  after  half-past  four  when,  all 
of  a  sudden,  the  window  closing  the  interior  balcony  above 
;he  great  nave  was  opened.  An  electric  thrill  passes  like 
lightning  through  the  expectant  crowd,  and,  with  a  great 
murmur  of  joy,  all  instantly  kneel. 


3  I  8  LIFE  OF  LEO 

Then  is  seen  advancing  to  the  railing  of  the  balcony  a 
tall,  white  figure,  the  hair  as  white  as  the  robes  he  wears, 
and  the  countenance  almost  as  white  as  the  hair.  Behind 
him  and  on  each  side  stand  cardinals  and  prelates.  A 
great  silence  has  fallen  on  the  crowd  beneath,  while,  with  a 
voice  clear  and  distinct  like  that  of  a  trumpet,  Leo  XIII. 
utters  the  sacramental  words  of  the  Apostolic  Benediction 
—the  first  blessing  of  a  parent  to  his  family,  of  the  Supreme 
Pastor  to  the  wide  flock  the  eyes  of  his  love  behold  kneel- 
ing there  before  him. 

His  last  words  are  still  echoing  through  the  vast  spaa-s 
of  the  basilica,  and  the  hand  of  the  Pontiff  is  still  raised  in 
benediction  and  prayer,  when  all  that  crowd,  as  if  moved  by 
one  instinct,  rise  to  their  feet,  and  a  mighty  shout,  "  L<>ni; 
live  Leo  XIII. !"  rings  along  the  nave  of  St.  Peter's.  It  is 
repeated  again  and  again.  There  speaks  the  heart  of  the 
entire  Catholic  world. 

It  is  the  first  time  that  this  second  "  Prisoner  of  the 
Vatican  "  looks  upon  his  people.  He  understands  them, 
appreciates  their  devotion,  and  retires. 

And  the  coronation  ?  The  Pope  had  appointed  for  the 
ceremony  Sunday,  March  3.  It  was  thought — and  even  he, 
old  and  experienced  as  he  was,  fancied — that  within  the  area 
of  the  great  church  of  St.  Peter's,  and  the  great  square 
which  is  in  reality  an  integral  part  of  the  chief  temple  of 
Catholicity,  a  Sovereign  Pontiff  might,  without  let  or  hin- 
drance, be  allowed  to  perform  the  necessary  and  solemn 
function  of  his  coronation  and  enthronization. 

But  he  did  not  know  yet  the  brutal  and  overmastering 
force  which  ruled  Rome  and  its  government. 

Great  preparations  had  begun  to  be  made  in  St.  Peter's 
for  the  ceremony  of  March  3.  Scaffoldings  were  erected, 
and  the  usual  magnificent  draperies  were  begun  to  be  hung 
along  the  nave,  when  of  a  sudden  they  were  taken  down 
again.  No  precautions  would  be  taken  by  those  in  author- 
ity to  prevent  interruptions,  or  to  secure  order  cither  in  the 
square  outside  St.  Peter's  or  even  in  the  church  within. 

So  on  the  day  appointed,  after  solemn  High  Mass  in  the 


CORONA  TlOtf  OF  POPE  LEO  XIII.  3  1 9 

Sistine  Chapel,  the  ambassadors  of  the  Catholic  Powers  at- 
tending in  the  name  of  their  governments,  the  coronation 
ceremony  is  performed  in  the  loggia  or  balcony  overlooking 
the  interior  of  St.  Peter's,  and  from  which  Leo  XIII.  had 
given  his  first  blessing  to  his  people.  There  again  he 
showed  himself,  bearing  his  tiara,  his  triple  crown  of  sharp 
thorns,  and  blessed  them.  But  no  force,  invisible  or  visible, 
could  prevent  them,  and  all  Catholicity  with  them,  from 
crowning  that  venerable  head  with  a  threefold  diadem  of 
love,  of  reverence,  and  of  undying  devotion. 

One  significant  incident  had  meanwhile  occurred  in 
Spain,  one  which  the  Catholic  world  will  never  fail  to  re- 
member with  gratitude.  The  Spanish  senate,  in  its  sitting 
of  February  26,  spontaneously  and  unanimously  adopt- 
ed a  resolution  offering  to  Leo  XIII.  their  respectful  feli- 
citations, moved,  as  they  said,  to  this  act  of  public  hom- 
age by  their  own  religious  feelings.  The  young  king  had 
already  written  his  own  hearty  words  of  reverent  duty  and 
congratulation. 

And  ere  that  king  had  closed  his  brief  career,  marked 
toward  its  ending  by  such  heroic  devotion  to  his  people, 
was  he,  as  well  as  they,  not  blessed  a  thousandfold  for  this 
affectionate  homage  of  the  sovereign  and  his  senate?  For 
Spain  Leo  XIII.  truly  proved  to  be  what  a  German  publi- 
cist called  him,  "  the  Prince  of  Peace"  saving  her  from  the 
horrors  of  war. 

The  consolation  thus  given  by  the  kingdom  and  people 
of  St.  Ferdinand  to  the  heart  of  the  new  Pontiff,  and  all  the 
additional  testimonies  of  affection,  loyalty,  and  devotion 
which  every  mail  brought  to  the  Vatican,  were  needed  by 
Leo  XIII.  even  at  the  first  stage  of  his  government. 

On  retiring  from  the  loggia  where  he  was  crowned,  and 
with  the  blessings  of  his  people  echoing  back  his  own 
solemn  benediction,  an  affecting  ceremony  terminated,  in 
the  Sistine  Chapel,  the  proceedings  of  that  day.  When  the 
Pope  had  laid  aside  the  pontifical  vestments,  he  received,  as 
is  customary  on  such  occasions,  the  homage  of  the  Sacred 
College.  Cardinal  di  Pietro,  the  sub-dean,  in  the  name  of 


320 


LIFE  OF  LEO  XI IL 


his  colleagues  renewed  the  oath  and  the  promises  of  fealty 
made  in  conclave  on  the  day  of  the  election,  and  then  in  a 
brief  address  expressed  their  common  sentiments  toward  the 
now  Sovereign.  "  Behold,  we  shall  be  thy  mouth  and  thy 
flesh,"  he  said,  in  the  words  of  Scripture.  The  Pope 
answered  in  terms  of  deep  humility,  saying  that  the  very 
rites  they  had  just  fulfilled  impressed  him  more  and  more 
with  the  sublimity  of  the  station  to  which  they  had  raised 
him,  and  made  him  continually  repeat  with  King  David  : 
"  Who  am  I,  O  Lord  God,  that  Thou  hast  brought  me  unto 
this?" 

When  night  came  there  was  a  spontaneous  illumination. 
All  classes  of  the  true  Romans,  the  old  population  of  the 
city,  as  distinguished  from  the  masses  whom  the  govern- 
ment had  invited  or  encouraged  to  come  to  Rome  from 
all  parts  of  Italy,  lit  up  their  windows.  The  palaces  of 
the  nobles  were  especially  conspicuous  on  this  occasion. 
But  the  men  who  had  resolved  that  the  Papal  coronation 
should  not  be  performed  with  the  usual  solemnities  in  St. 
Peter's  were  on  the  lookout  for  this  manifestation  of  Ca- 
tholic feeling.  They  soon  had  well-organized  bands  in  all 
the  streets,  provided  with  stones,  and  smashing  every  win- 
dow in  every  house  they  could  reach  and  that  dared  to  show 
a  single  taper  or  lamp.  The  palaces  along  the  Corso  fared  ill 
on  that  night.  The  police  were  there;  but  the  police  took 
care  to  encourage  the  rioters  by  exhorting  them  "  not  to 
go  too  far."*  It  is  sufficient  to  know  that  the  Minister  of 
the  Interior  was  then  the  notorious  Crispi. 

On  the  4th  of  March,  the  very  day  after  his  coronation, 
Leo  XIII.  completed  the  work  which  Pius  IX.  had  been 
prevented  by  death  from  finishing:  he  promulgated  the 
bull  Ex  Supremo  Af>ostotatns  A[>ict\  reconstituting  the  Ca- 
tholic hierarchy  in  Scotland.  This  work  of  reconstruction 
seemed,  as  he  expresses  it  in  his  exquisite  Latin,  "a  happy 
omen  with  which  to  begin  the  exercise  of  the  Supreme 

*  English  and  Ameiican  readers  \\-jl  recall  the  clnssic  ri-commendati  n 
>f  the  officer  10  his  men  "not  to  jn.t  the  bailifl  under  the  pump  and  not 
(o  toss  him  on  a  blanket." 


THE  FIRST  ACTS  OF  LEO  XI II.  32! 

Pastorate,  which  we  have  taken  on  ourself  with  fear  and 
trembling  amid  the  calamities  of  the  present  times."  It  is 
with  extreme  satisfaction  that,  remembering  the  history  of 
the  ancient  see  of  St.  Andrew's,  Leo  XIII.  "  recalls  it  from 
the  tomb  and  bestows  on  it  metropolitan  rank,  with  the  title 
of  the  See  of  Edinburgh."  In  his  first  consistorial  allocu- 
tion, on  the  28th  of  the  same  month,  the  Pope  again  al- 
ludes to  the  restoration  of  the  Scottish  hierarchy.  "  We 
trust,"  he  says,  "  that  the  work  thus  brought  to  an  end  by 
the  Holy  See  shall  be  productive  of  abundant  fruit,  and 
that,  through  the  intercession  of  the  patron  saints  of  Scot- 
land, the  mountains  in  that  country  shall  put  on  peace  for 
the  people,  and  the  hills  righteousness." 

Did  the  watchful  eyes  of  the  Common  Father  not  look 
beyond  the  shores  of  Scotland  and  the  isles  blessed  by 
Columbkille  long  ago  to  that  kindred  land  from  which,  in 
Europe's  darkest  days,  light,  righteousness,  and  the  peace 
of  the  Gospel  had  come  for  both  Scotland  and  England, 
for  the  adjoining  Continent,  for  the  mountains  above  St. 
Gall  and  Lake  Constance,  for  the  Ligurian  hills  where 
Bobbio  arose  around  the  monastery  of  St.  Columbanus  ? 
Can  he,  Leo  XIII.,  will  he  bring  back  peace  with  justice  to 
the  Green  Isle  so  unspeakably  dear  to  both  Columbkille 
and  Columbanus?  We  shall  see. 

On  the  nth  of  that  same  month,  amid  all  the  anxieties 
and  occupations  which  pressed  upon  him,  Leo  XIII.  found 
time  to  reply,  with  more  even  than  his  wonted  warmth,  to 
a  society  founded  in  Paris  for  the  protection  and  encourage- 
ment of  young  artisans.  It  was  the  creation  of  a  man  well 
known  to  the  author,  one  of  those  simply  heroic  Christians 
who  find  it  quite  natural  to  devote  themselves  in  life  to 
the  most  arduous  self-denial  and  self-sacrifice  for  the  good 
of  others,  and  who  face  imprisonment  and  death  in  the  per- 
formance of  duty  with  the  calm  intrepidity  of  souls  that 
never  knew  either  guilt  or  fear.  This  was  Father  Olivaint, 
one  of  the  victims  or  "  hostages"  of  the  Paris  Commune. 

He  and  his  brethren  had  done  wonders  to  save  the 
working  men  and  women  of  the  French  capital  from  the 


322  LIFE  OF  LEO  xiiL 

temptations  of  poverty,  as  well  as  from  ignorance,  vice, 
and  the  meshes  of  the  socialistic  organizations.  When  Oli- 
vaint  fell,  and  his  brethren  were  expelled  in  1880  from  their 
own  houses,  they  either  remained  in  obscurity  and  isola- 
tion near  the  scene  of  their  labors,  so  as  to  continue  their 
noble  work,  or  other  noble  men  took  it  up  after  them. 

It  was  work  such  as  Leo  XI 1 1.  sympathized  with  from 
the  bottom  of  his  soul ;  for  he  had  been  careful  in  Perugia, 
and  indeed  wherever  he  had  labored,  to  watch  tenderly 
over  the  interests,  material  as  well  as  spiritual,  of  the  chil- 
dren of  toil.  And  this  most  fatherly  solicitude  for  the  wel- 
fare of  the  laboring  classes  all  over  the  world  has  inspired 
some  of  his  most  magnificent  encyclical  letters,  as  we  shall 
soon  see. 

A  month  later  the  Pope  wrote  another  beautiful  letter 
to  Prince  Eugene  de  Caraman-Chimay,  who,  with  many  of 
his  brother-noblemen,  were  devoting  themselves  in  Belgium 
to  found  and  promote  societies  in  aid  of  workingmen.  In 
France  there  was  no  less  activity  in  this  direction  on  the 
part  of  distinguished  laymen,  and  Leo  XIII.  seized  upon 
every  occasion  to  praise  and  bless  their  exertions.  How 
needed  were  the  efforts  of  the  noble  sons  and  the  praise 
of  the  parent  the  world  will  soon  see. 

In  truth,  as  we  shall  have  occasion  to  observe  in  a 
future  chapter,  his  great  mind  had  long  before  clearly  per- 
ceived the  utility  and  necessity  of  reviving  in  our  age  and 
in  every  civilized  land  associations  of  workingmen  and 
tradesmen  after  the  model  of  the  free  labor  guilds  of  the 
early  and  later  Christian  ages,  of  those  of  Italy  in  particu- 
lar, which  had  in  very  truth  been  the  creators  of  that  glori- 
ous Italy  which  the  Revolution  is  now  fain  to  destroy.  * 

*Thc  Riforma  of  Rome,  the  organ  of  Signor  Crispi  and  the  revolu- 
tionary party  in  Italy — the  organ,  in  fact,  of  what  we  have  designated  in 
this  volume asthe  Occult  For.e — published  on  March  9,  1886,  an  editorial  ar- 
ticle containing  a  plan  for  the  complete  destruction  of  the  Church  in  Italy, 
and  quite  identical  with  that  which  is  now  so  effectually  carried  out  in 
France:  "To  array  the  inferior  clergy  against  their  superiors;  to  take 
away  in  every  parish,  village,  and  hamlet  the  influence  and  authority  of  the 
priest,  and  transfer  them  to  the  atheistical  schoolmaster  and  schoolmis- 


THE  CONSISTORIAL  ALLOCUTION  OF  MARCH  28.     323 

We  have  just  mentioned  Leo  XIII.'s  first  consistorial 
allocution,  pronounced  on  March  28.  Many  things  con- 
tributed to  make  this  discourse  remarkable  apart  from  its 
being  the  first  solemn  utterance  of  the  new  Pontiff.  His 
former  colleagues  in  the  Sacred  College  and  brothers  in  the 
pastoral  office  were  well  acquainted  with  the  scholarly  ac- 
complishments of  Cardinal  Pecci.  But  these,  great  and  un- 
questioned as  they  were,  could  only  be  accounted  a  secon- 
dary merit.  They  had  raised  him  by  their  suffrages  to  the 
Chair  of  Peter  in  the  most  evil  days  known  since  those  of 
Nero  or  Julian  the  Apostate,  because  of  the  magnificent 
administrative  abilities  of  which  he  had  afforded  so  many 
and  such  splendid  proofs  as  Bishop  of  Perugia  from  1846 
till  1878.  They  placed  on  him,  well  nigh  a  septuagenarian, 
the  triple  crown,  because  they  firmly  believed  that  he,  in 
the  necessarily  few  years  he  could  rule  the  Church,  would 
guide  her  bark  safely  through  the  fierce  storm  that  raged 
around  it,  through  the  breakers  which  beset  it  on  every 
side. 

In  1886  we  see  how  gloriously  their  expectations  and 
trust  are  realized.  But  we  may  not  anticipate.  It  is  right 
that  we  should  give  ear  to  the  beautiful  words  of  wisdom 
addressed  to  the  Sacred  College  and  to  the  Christian  world 
on  that  28th  of  March  : 

"  VENERABLE  BROTHERS  :  When  your  suffrages  called 
us  last  month  to  take  on  ourselves  the  government  of  the 
universal  Church,  and  to  fill  on  earth  the  place  of  the  Prince 
of  pastors,  Christ  Jesus,  we  did  indeed  feel  our  soul  moved 
by  the  deepest  perplexity  and  perturbation.  On  the  one  hand 
we  were  filled  with  great  fear  by  the  sincere  conviction  of 
our  own  unworthiness,  as  well  as  by  our  utter  inability  to 
support  so  great  a  burden  ;  and  this  sense  of  infirmity  was 

tress  ;  to  take  the  complete  control  of  ecclesiastical  revenues  of  every 
kind,  so  that  no  parish  priest,  no  clerical  functionary  shall  receive  a  penny 
save  from  the  hand  of  the  government."  Such  is  the  Italian  Kulturkampf. 
The  letter  of  Hermann  Grimm  in  the  Deutsche  Randau  on  the  "  Destruc- 
tion of  Rome"  points  to  another  part  of  this  campaign  against  Christianity, 
Christian  art,  and  civilization,  and  they  are  putting  it  into  execution  with 
right  hearty  zeal  ! 


324  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

all  the  more  increased  by  the  remembrance  of  how  much 
the  fame  of  our  predecessor  .  .  .  shone  the  brighter  and 
more  glorious  through  the  whole  earth.  That  great  ruler 
of  the  Catholic  fold  had  always  contended  for  truth  and 
justice  with  such  invincible  courage,  and  had  labored  so 
long  and  with  such  exemplary  fidelity  in  administering  the 
affairs  of  the  Christian  world,  that  he  not  only  shed  a  lustre 
on  this  Apostolic  See,  but  filled  the  whole  Church  with 
love  and  admiration  for  his  person,  thereby  perhaps  ex- 
celling all  his  predecessors  in  the  high  and  constant  testi- 
monies of  public  respect  and  veneration  paid  to  him,  as  he 
surpassed  them  all  by  the  length  of  his  Pontificate. 

"  On  the  other  hand,  we  were  filled  with  deep  anxiety 
by  the  very  sad  state,  in  our  days,  of  civil  society  almost 
everywhere,  as  well  as  of  the  Catholic  Church  itself,  and 
especially  of  this  Apostolic  See,  which,  violently  stripped 
of  its  temporal  sovereignty,  is  reduced  to  a  condition  in 
which  it  can  in  no  wise  enjoy  the  full,  free,  and  unimpeded 
use  of  its  power. 

"  Such,  Venerable  Brothers,  were  the  reasons  which 
moved  us  to  refuse  the  proffered  honor  of  the  Pontifi- 
cate. But  how  could  we  resist  the  divine  will,  which  was 
so  manifest  in  the  unanimity  of  your  decision,  and  in  that 
most  loving  solicitude  felt  by  you  for  the  sole  interest  of 
the  Catholic  Church,  urging  you  to  elect,  as  soon  as  possi- 
ble, a  Sovereign  Pontiff? 

"  We,  therefore,  deemed  it  our  duty  to  take  on  ourselves 
the  office  of  the  Supreme  Apostleship,  and  to  yield  to  the 
will  of  God,  placing  our  whole  trust  in  Him,  with  the  hope 
that  He  who  had  imposed  on  us  the  high  dignity  would 
also  give  to  our  lowliness  the  strength  to  sustain  it. 

"  As  this  is  the  first  time  it  is  allowed  us  to  address  your 
Eminences  from  this  place,  we  desire  first  of  all  solemnly 
to  assure  you  that  in  the  fulfilment  of  the  service  of  our 
apostolate  we  shall  have  nothing  so  much  at  heart  as  to 
bestow  all  our  care,  with  the  help  of  God's  grace,  in  sa- 
credly guarding  the  deposit  of  the  Catholic  faith,  in 
watching  faithfully  over  the  rights  and  interests  of  the 


THE  PONTIFF'S  COLLEAGUES  AND  COUNSELLORS.     325 

Church  and  the  Holy  See,  and  in  laboring  for  the  salva- 
tion of  all ;  ever  ready,  for  all  these  purposes,  to  undergo 
any  fatigue,  to  draw  back  from  no  discomfort.  .  .  . 

"  In  the  discharge  of  these  duties  of  our  ministry  we 
trust  that  we  shall  never  lack  the  benefit  of  your  counsels 
and  your  wisdom — nay,  we  ardently  beseech  you  never  to 
allow  them  to  fail  us.  And  in  saying  this  we  wish  you  to 
understand  that  it  is  not  a  mere  expression  of  official  cour- 
tesy, but  a  solemn  declaration  of  our  affectionate  desire. 
For  we  are  deeply  impressed  by  what  the  Holy  Scripture 
relates  of  Moses — that,  namely,  when  recoiling  from  the 
weighty  responsibility  of  governing  a  whole  people,  he,  by 
God's  own  command,  called  to  his  aid  seventy  men  from 
among  the  ancients  of  Israel,  in  order  to  have  them  bear 
the  burden  with  him,  and  thus  to  make  them,  by  their  help 
and  counsel,  lighten  his  cares  in  governing  the  people  of 
Israel.  This  is  the  example  which  we,  who  have  been 
made  the  guide  and  ruler  of  the  entire  Christian  people,  in 
spite  of  our  unworthiness,  set  before  our  eyes ;  wherefore 
we  cannot  refrain  from  seeking  and  finding  in  you  the 
seventy  men  of  all  Israel  in  the  Church  of  God,  a  help  in 
our  labors,  a  comfort  in  our  cares. 

"  We  know,  moreover,  as  the  word  of  God  declares, 
that  there  is  safety  where  there  are  many  counsels ;  we 
know  that,  as  the  Council  of  Trent  admonishes  us,  that 
the  administration  of  the  universal  Church  depends  on  the 
counsels  given  to  the  Roman  Pontiff  by  the  College  of  Car- 
dinals ;  we  learn,  finally,  from  St.  Bernard,  that  the  cardi- 
nals are  called  the  Pontiff's  colleagues  and  counsellors. 
And  therefore  it  is  that  we,  who  for  nearly  twenty-five 
years  have  enjoyed  the  honors  of  your  order,  have  brought 
with  us  to  this  sovereign  seat  not  only  a  heart  full  of  affec- 
tion and  zeal  for  you,  but  the  firm  resolve  to  use  chiefly 
those  who  were  formerly  our  associates  in  rank  as  our 
fellow-laborers  and  advisers  in  transacting  ecclesiastical 
affairs. 

"  And  now  a  most  happy  and  timely  occurrence  permits 
us  to  share  with  you  the  first  sweet  fruit  of  consolation 


326  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

which  our  Lord  permits  us  to  gather  from  the  first  great 
work  accomplished  for  the  glory  of  religion.  Our  saintly 
predecessor,  Pius  IX.,  in  his  great  zeal  for  the  Catholic 
cause,  had  undertaken  what  such  of  you  as  belong  to  the 
Congregation  of  the  Propagation  of  the  Faith  had  defi- 
nitely decreed — to  re-establish  the  episcopal  hierarchy  in 
the  illustrious  kingdom  of  Scotland,  and  thereby  add  a 
new  lustre  to  that  Church ;  this  we  have  been  able  to  bring, 
with  the  divine  aid,  to  a  happy  termination  by  the  apos- 
tolic letters  (bull)  which  we  had  published  on  the  4th  of 
this  month. 

"  It  was  indeed  to  us  a  subject  of  holy  joy  that  in  so 
doing  we  were  fulfilling  the  ardent  wishes  of  our  dearly 
beloved,  the  clergy  and  faithful  people  of  Scotland,  of 
whose  great  devotion  to  the  Catholic  Church  and  the  Chair 
of  Peter  we  have  many  striking  proofs.  We  therefore  hope 
sincerely  that  the  work  thus  accomplished  by  the  Apostolic 
See  shall  be  crowned  with  happy  results,  and  that,  through 
the  intercession  of  the  patron  saints  of  Scotland,  through- 
out the  length  and  breadth  of  the  kingdom  '  the  moun- 
tains shall  put  on  peace  for  the  people,  and  the  hills 
righteousness.'  .  .  ."* 

Such  was  Leo  XIII.'s  first  official  utterance  from  the 
Apostolic  Throne. 

On  the  2 ist  of  April  appeared  his  first  encyclical  let- 
ter, Inscrtttabili,  on  the  evils  which  torment  society  in 
Christian  countries  and  endanger  its  very  existence,  as  well 
as  on  their  causes  and  their  remedy. 

It  foreshadowed  all  the  teachings  of  the  magnificent 
scries  of  encyclicals  which  were  to  issue  in  succession  from 
his  pen.  He  seemed  to  feel,  while  penning  this  first  great 
doctrinal  epistle,  that  the  burden  of  old  age  was  heavy 
on  him,  as  well  as  the  terrible  load  of  care  imposed  by  his 
charge.  He  therefore  put  all  his  thought  and  strength 
into  this  first  letter,  warning,  with  the  voice  and  the  au- 
thority of  a  prophet,  governments  and  peoples  of  the  fear- 

*  "  Lconis  XIII.  Pont.  Max.  Acta,"  vol.  i.  pp.  37-41. 


FIRST  ENC YCLICAL  LE TTER,   ' '  1NSCRUTABILI. "     327 

ful  causes  of  social  disaster  and  ruin  which  were  at  work  in 
their  midst. 

Every  word  and  act  of  Leo  XIII.  had,  during  the  first 
month  after  his  election,  been  watched  with  a  keen  if  not 
with  a  friendly  interest  by  the  liberal  press  of  Italy  and 
all  Continental  Europe.  The  rumor  had  been  industri- 
ously circulated  that  he  had  made  up  his  mind,  if  not  to 
depart  entirely  from  the  line  of  policy  pursued  by  Pius 
IX.,  at  least  to  modify  it  deeply. 

The  Italian  revolutionists  identified,  or  pretended  to 
identify,  the  wholesale  political,  legislative,  and  irreligious 
changes  which  they  had  brought  about  in  the  Peninsula 
with  what  in  other  lands  was  called  "  progress  "  and  "  mod- 
ern civilization."  They  wished  the  Pope,  and  all  Catholics 
with  him,  to  accept  the  usurpation  of  the  States  of  the 
Church,  the  occupation  of  Rome,  the  suppression  of  the 
Religious  Orders,  the  sequestration  of  Church  property, 
the  laws  on  matrimony,  on  education,  and  those  even 
which  degraded  the  priesthood  and  deprived  both  the 
Pope  and  the  bishops  of  the  liberty  essential  to  their  of- 
fice, as  the  natural  consequence  of  the  development  of  that 
"  modern  civilization,"  and,  by  accepting  "  accomplished 
facts  "  as  done  and  over,  to  be  reconciled  with  the  existing 
state  of  things. 

This  iniquitous  and  impossible  "reconciliation"  Pius 
IX.  had  denounced,  exposed,  and  stigmatized  with  an 
eloquence  and  a  truth  which  commended  themselves  to 
the  judgment  of  all  real  statesmen,  sound  politicians,  and 
true  Christians.  Just  as  well,  in  the  days  of  Mohammed 
II.,  had  the  Turks  succeeded  in  conquering  Vienna  and 
Rome,  and  with  them  the  Austrian  Empire  and  the  Italian 
Peninsula,  could  the  victor  have  demanded  of  the  then 
existing  Pope  to  accept  the  change  of  governments  as 
".progress,"  and  have  expected  the  Church  to  become  re- 
conciled to  the  Koran  and  to  such  toleration  and  liberty 
as  Constantinople  met  with  in  1450,  and  Seville  and  To- 
ledo in  715. 

It  was  persistently  asserted,  and  was  believed  in  some 


328  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIIL 

quarters,  that  Leo  XII I.  would  yield  to  the  force  of  events 
and  endeavor  to  devise  a  nunius  vivcndi  with  the  masters  of 
Rome  and  Italy. 

So,  in  spite  of  the  formal  and  solemn  declarations  to 
the  contrary  contained  in  the  Pope's  first  allocution,  in 
spite  of  the  confirmatory  statements  to  be  found  in  other 
utterances  of  his,  the  liberal  press  still  continued  their  tac- 
tics of  contrasting  the  new  Pontiff's  moderation  of  mind, 
high  culture,  liberality  of  sentiment,  and  knowledge  of 
modern  society  and  its  exigencies  with  the  "  unyielding 
and  uncompromising  "  spirit  and  temper  of  his  predecessor. 
They  were  impatiently  expecting  the  first  encyclical,  which, 
like  the  discourse  of  a  prime  minister  at  the  opening  of 
Parliament,  or  the  first  message  to  Congress  of  a  newly 
elected  American  president,  is  taken  as  a  programme  of 
his  future  policy. 

The  encyclical  at  length  appeared,  dated  on  Easter  Sun- 
day, the  2ist  of  April,  1878,  and  it  did  show  in  the  most 
remarkable  manner  that  Leo  XIII.  had  a  perfect  "know- 
ledge of  modern  society  and  its  exigencies,"  a  thorough 
insight  into  Christian  civilization,  its  principles  and  benefits 
to  mankind.  But  it  wofully  disappointed  all  who  fancied 
or  hoped  that  a  Pope  could  reconcile  the  revealed  truth  of 
which  he  is  the  divinely  appointed  guardian,  the  righteous 
ness,  justice,  and  divine  morality  which  flow  from  the 
revealed  law  of  life,  with  the  awful  errors,  the  unbridled 
licentiousness  of  thought  and  word  and  deed,  the  iniquity 
and  the  immorality,  which  are  cloaked  over  by  their  pre- 
tended civilization. 

If  we  have  been  able  in  the  preceding  chapters  to  con- 
vey to  the  reader  the  conviction  or  the  impression  that 
Joachim  Pecci,  while  Bishop  of  Perugia,  in  giving  to  his 
people  the  magnificent  instructions  mentioned  by  us,  was 
giving  them  the  light  of  revealed  truth  as  he  conceived  if, 
and  dealing  out  to  them  full  draughts  of  Christian  wisdom, 
the  philosophy  which  builds  up  and  perfects  and  preserves 
states,  then  we  shall  find  the  same  light  shining  now  with 
greater  splendor.  From  the  hill-top  on  which  is  throned 


THE  BATTLE  AGAINST  CHRISTIANITY. 


329 


Perugia  the  zealous  bishop  could  only  speak  to  Umbria, 
or  at  most  to  Italy.  From  the  sublime  elevation  of  the 
Chair  of  Peter,  Leo  XIII.  speaks  with  authority  to  all 
mankind  ;  the  light  imparted  by  his  teaching  illuminates 
both  hemispheres. 

We  say  it  with  the  deepest  and  most  intense  conviction 
of  the  truth  of  what  we  say,  that  in  defending  Catholic 
truth,  the  institutions  and  morals  of  Christian  society, 
Leo  XIII.  defends  the  dearest,  deepest,  most  vital  and 
sacred  interests  of  every  Protestant  country  on  the  face  of 
the  globe,  the  essential  liberty,  morality,  and  happiness  of 
every  Protestant  home  in  existence. 

Once  more  we  affirm  it :  the  battle  which  is  now  raging 
in  Italy  and  in  Spain,  in  France  and  Germany  and  Belgium, 
in  Great  Britain  and  even  in  our  own  United  States,  is  not 
so  much  a  battle  against  Catholicism  as  the  most  powerful, 
wide-spread,  compact,  and  ancient  form  of  Christianity,  as 
against  Christianity  itself,  against  the  very  notion  of  reli- 
gion, the  very  existence  of  social  order,  the  very  founda- 
tions of  that  glorious  civilization  which  has  given  to 
Europe  the  leadership  of  the  world. 

If  any  man  doubt  this,  then  let  him  read  this  first  en- 
cyclical letter  of  Leo  XIII.  We  can  only  give  a  few 
extracts.  But  these  will  satisfy  the  earnest  and  the  can- 
did minded  that  the  world  has  rarely  heard  such  eloquent 
and  pregnant  lessons  fall  even  from  the  Chair  of  Peter.  It 
is  addressed  in  the  usual  form  to  all  the  bishops  of  the 
Catholic  world,  by  the  Supreme  Pastor  to  his  fellow-labor- 
ers in  the  fold  of  Christ :  * 

"  As  soon  as,  by  an  inscrutable  design  of  God,  we  were, 
albeit  unworthy,  raised  to  the  sublime  height  of  this  apos- 
tolic dignity,  we  felt  impelled  by  a  strong  desire  and  by  a 
kind  of  necessity  to  address  you  by  letter,  not  only  for  the 
purpose  of  expressing  our  heartfelt  affection  for  you,  but 
for  that  of  discharging  the  duty  of  our  divinely  entrusted 
office  by  encouraging  you — you  who  are  called  to  bear  a 

*  An  encyclical  letter,  like  a  papal  bull,  is  always  designated  by  the 
two  or  three  first  words.  This  is  termed  the  encyclical  Inscrutabili. 


330 


LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 


part  in  our  care — to  continue  with  us  the  battle  for  the 
Church  of  God  and  the  salvation  of  souls. 

"  From  the  very  beginning  of  our  Pontificate  we  have 
before  our  eyes  the  sad  spectacle  of  the  evils  which  assail 
mankind  from  every  side.  There  is  a  wide-spread  subver- 
sion of  the  cardinal  truths  on  which  the  very  foundations 
of  human  society  repose.  There  is  a  wicked  disposition  of 
men's  minds  which  is  impatient  of  all  lawful  power.  There 
is  a  perpetual  foment  of  dissension,  begetting  internal 
strife,  cruel  and  bloody  wars.  There  is  a  contempt  of  the 
laws  of  morality  and  justice,  an  insatiable  yearning  for  the 
transitory  goods  of  earth,  and  a  forgetfulness  of  the  eternal, 
carried  to  the  insane  pitch  of  causing  so  many  unhappy 
persons  to  lay  violent  hands  on  themselves.  There  is  an 
inconsiderate  administration,  a  squandering,  an  upsetting 
of  the  public  property  and  revenues ;  and  there  is  the 
brazen  impudence  of  men  who,  when  they  deceive  their 
fellows  most,  make  them  believe  that  they  are  the  promot- 
ers of  patriotism,  of  liberty,  of  right  of  every  kind.  There 
is,  in  fine,  a  pestilential  virus  which  creeps  into  the  vital 
organs  and  members  of  human  society,  which  allows  them 
no  rest,  and  which  forebodes  for  the  social  order  new  revo- 
lutions ending  in  calamitous  results." 

No  one  who  is  at  all  acquainted  with  the  social  condi- 
tion of  the  civilized  world  but  will  admit  the  truth  of  this 
diagnosis.  Now,  what  is  the  nature,  what  the  source  of 
this  universal  distemper? 

"  As  to  the  cause  of  all  these  evils,  we  are  persuaded 
that  it  lies  principally  in  this  :  that  men  have  despised  and 
rejected  the  holy  and  august  authority  of  the  Church, 
which,  in  the  name  of  God,  is  placed  over  the  human  race 
and  is  the  avenger  and  protector  of  all  legitimate  authority. 
The  enemies  of  public  order  were  fully  persuaded  of  this 
when  they  found  no  means  of  destroying  society  to  its 
foundations  so  efficacious  as  persistent  attacks  on  the 
Church  of  God,  by  assailing  her  with  the  weapons  of 
shameless  calumny,  by  odiously  accusing  her  of  being  the 
enemy  of  true  civilization,  by  daily  damaging  her  author- 


THE  CAUSES  OF  THE  PRESENT  SOCIAL  EVILS.      331 

ity  and  influence  in  some  new  way,  and  subverting  the 
supreme  power  of  the  Roman  Pontiff,  who  is  the  asserter 
and  protector  on  earth  of  the  eternal  and  unchangeable 
interests  of  goodness  and  righteousness. 

"  Hence  the  origin  of  these  laws  which  overturn  the 
divine  constitution  of  the  Catholic  Church,  and  which  we 
lament  to  see  in  vigor  in  most  countries  ;  hence  came  the 
contempt  of  episcopal  authority,  the  obstacles  opposed  to 
the  free  exercise  of  the  ecclesiastical  ministry,  the  destruc- 
tion of  religious  communities,  and  the  public  sale  of  the 
property  which  supported  the  ministers  of  the  Church  and 
fed  the  poor ;  hence  came  the  withdrawing  from  the  salu- 
tary control  of  the  Church  of  the  public  institutions  of 
charity  and  beneficence ;  hence  sprang  the  unbridled  liberty 
of  teaching  and  publishing  all  manner  of  evil,  while,  on  the 
other  hand,  the  right  of  the  Church  to  train  and  to  educate 
the  young  is  violated  and  suppressed.  Nor  is  any  other 
purpose  to  be  found  for  the  usurpation  of  the  civil  princi- 
pality which  Providence  conferred,  many  ages  ago,  on  the 
Bishop  of  Rome,  to  enable  him  to  exercise  freely,  without 
let  or  hindrance,  the  power  given  him  by  Christ  for  the 
eternal  salvation  of  the  race." 

To  be  sure,  some  of  our  non-Catholic  readers  will  not, 
perhaps,  be  ready  to  grant  that  the  primal  and  chief  source 
of  modern  social  evils  springs  from  the  successful  conspi- 
racy organized  against  the  Catholic  Church  and  her  insti- 
tutions, especially  against  the  Papacy  and  the  Temporal 
Power.  But,  unfortunately  for  their  view  of  this  great 
question,  we  have  the  recorded  utterances  of  the  head-con 
spirators  themselves — of  Weishaupt  and  Frederick  II.  and 
Voltaire,  without  mentioning  so  many  others  of  the  so- 
called  "  philosophers  "  of  the  last  century — of  the  recog- 
nized leaders  of  the  sceptic,  rationalistic,  scientific,  and 
socialistic  schools  of  the  present  age.  They  now  proclaim 
it  openly  in  France,  in  Belgium,  in  Germany,  in  Switzer- 
land, as  well  as  in  Italy,  where  they  have  carried  out  to  the 
letter  the  old  programme  of  the  anti-Christian  leagues. 

They  are  not   afraid  of  Protestantism,  because  it  is  not 


332 


LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 


a  unit  like  the  Catholic  Church,  and  because  the  Protestant 
sects,  with  their  Bible  and  proselytizing  societies,  are  use- 
ful and  energetic  allies  in  battering  down  the  bulwark  of 
the  common  enemy— the  Church  of  Rome. 

None  the  less  true  is  it  that  all  the  forces  of  infidelity 
and  revolution  are  marshalled  against  Christianity  as  em- 
bodied in  that  grand  old  Church.  And  equally  evident  is 
it  that  as  in  Perugia,  so  in  Rome  and  from  his  seat  of 
authority  in  the  Vatican,  he  whom  we  call  Leo  XIII.  leads 
to  battle  the  forces  of  those  who  fight  for  Christ  and  reve- 
lation and  social  order. 

In  addressing  himself  to  the  Catholic  hierarchy,  dis- 
persed all  over  the  globe,  he  does  not,  he  says,  mean  to 
sadden  them  by  depicting  the  sad  social  condition  of  Chris- 
tian peoples,  but  clearly  to  point  out  to  them  toward  what 
purpose  their  common  zeal  must  be  chiefly  directed. 

And  then,  as  if  to  furnish  them  a  rich  theme  for  the 
instruction  to  be  given  to  their  flocks,  intellectual  weapons 
for  the  campaign  which  he  wishes  them  to  begin  against 
the  enemies  of  order  and  humanity,  he  sketches  true  civili- 
zation with  a  masterly  hand  : 

"  It  is  well  known  and  self-evident  that  we  cannot  con- 
ceive of  a  community  in  which  true  civilization  is  not  based 
on  the  everlasting  principles  of  truth  and  the  immutable 
laws  of  rectitude  and  justice,  and  in  which  men's  hearts  are 
not  united  by  sincere  love,  and  where  such  love  does  not 
sweetly  regulate  the  interchange  of  duties  and  relations. 

"  Now,  who  will  dare  to  deny  that  it  is  the  Church, 
which,  by  preaching  the  Gospel  to  the  nations,  has  borne 
the  light  of  truth  into  the  midst  of  savage  races  plunged  in 
hideous  superstition,  and  has  thereby  led  them  to  acknow- 
ledge the  Divine  Author  of  the  world  and  to  reform  their 
lives?  that  it  was  the  Church  which  did  away  with  the  mis- 
eries of  slavery  and  lifted  up  mankind  once  more  to  their 
sublime  native  dignity  ?  that  she  it  was  who,  planting  the 
sign  of  redemption  on  every  shore,  brought  thither  at  the 
same  time  or  took  under  her  protection  the  sciences  and 
the  arts,  founded  and  fostered  the  admirable  institutions  of 


TRUE  AND  FALSE  CIVILIZATION.  333 

charity  in  which  every  form  of  suffering  was  assuaged,  and 
everywhere  instructed  and  elevated  the  populations,  de- 
livered them  from  squalid  poverty,  and  labored  in  every 
way  to  make  them  live  in  a  manner  suitable  to  the  dignity 
of  human  nature  and  to  its  hoped-for  destinies? 

"  If  any  sensible  man  in  our  day  will  compare  the  age  in 
which  we  live,  so  bitterly  hostile  to  the  religion  and  Church 
of  Christ,  to  those  blessed  ages  when  the  Church  was 
honored  as  a  mother  by  the  nations,  he  will  surely  find 
that  the  society  of  our  day,  so  convulsed  by  revolutions 
and  destructive  upheavals,  is  moving  straightway  and 
rapidly  toward  its  ruin  ;  while  the  society  of  the  former 
ages,  when  most  docile  to  the  rule  of  the  Church  and  most 
obedient  to  her  laws,  was  adorned  with  the  noblest  institu- 
tions and  enjoyed  tranquillity,  riches,  and  prosperity.  If 
the  many  blessings  which  we  have  enumerated,  springing 
as  they  did  from  the  ministrations  and  salutary  labors  of 
the  Church,  are  the  characteristic  works  and  ornaments  of 
true  civilization,  then,  far  from  being  averse  to  it  or  repel- 
ling it,  the  Church  of  Christ,  on  the  contrary,  claims  that 
to  her  belongs  the  glory  of  having  given  birth  to  it,  nursed 
and  developed  it. 

"  More  than  that,  the  kind  of  social  civilization  which 
is  so  hostile  to  the  doctrines  and  laws  of  the  Church  is 
found  to  be  only  a  hollow  imitation  of  the  reality,  a  mere 
name  without  the  substance.  You  have  the  proof  of  this 
in  the  peoples  on  whom  the  light  of  the  Gospel  never 
shone,  in  whose  manner  of  living  there  appeared,  indeed, 
a  certain  false  semblance  of  true  civilization,  but  the  solid 
and  substantial  fruits  of  its  culture  were  not  there. 

"  Assuredly  that  is  not  to  be  deemed  the  perfection  of 
civilized  life  which  boldly  contemns  all  lawful  power ;  nor 
is  that  to  be  esteemed  liberty  whose  wretched  progress  is 
marked  by  the  unrepressed  propagation  of  error,  by  the 
unbridled  gratification  of  evil  desires,  by  the  impunity 
allowed  to  guilt  and  crime,  and  by  the  oppression  which 
weighs  on  good  citizens  of  every  rank.  All  these  are 
wrong,  are  bad,  are  absurd,  and  cannot,  therefore,  avail  to 


334  L!f£  op  LEO 

perfect  the  human  race  or  to  bless  it  with  prosperity,  for 
sin  maketli  nations  miserable  ;*  on  the  contrary,  they  must, 
by  corrupting  both  minds  and  hearts,  drag  down  by  their 
very  weight  nations  into  every  crime,  ruin  all  order,  and 
at  length  bring  the  condition  and  peace  of  a  common- 
wealth to  extreme  and  certain  destruction. 

"  Now,  if  we  consider  the  labors  of  the  Papacy,  what 
can  be  more  unjust  than  to  deny  the  great  and  glorious  ser- 
vices rendered  to  the  whole  civilized  world  by  the  Bishops 
of  Rome?  Our  predecessors,  in  securing  the  good  of  the 
nations,  never  hesitated  to  face  struggles  of  every  kind,  to 
undergo  any  amount  of  labor,  to  expose  themselves  to 
bitter  troubles.  With  their  eyes  fixed  on  heaven,  they  did 
not  quail  before  the  threats  of  the  wicked,  nor  allow  either 
flattery  or  bribes  to  elicit  from  them  an  assent  which  would 
prove  them  to  be  degenerate  and  unworthy  of  their  office. 

"  It  was  this  Apostolic  See  which  collected  and  built  up 
together  again  the  remains  of  ancient  society  fallen  asun- 
der; it  was  the  Apostolic  See  in  whose  friendly  beacon 
light  shone  forth  the  civilization  of  the  Christian  ages;  it 
was  the  anchor  of  salvation  which  held  the  bark  of  human- 
•ity  amid  all  the  fearful  storms  that  assailed  it ;  it  was  the 
sacred  tie  of  concord  through  which  the  most  widely  sepa- 
rated nations,  and  the  most  opposed  in  their  manners  and 
customs,  were  bound  together  in  one  great  society ;  it  was, 
finally,  the  common  centre  at  which  the  nations  sought 
not  only  the  doctrine  of  faith  and  religion,  but  the  means 
to  bring  about  peace  and  the  wise  counsels  for  administer- 
ing their  affairs. 

"  Why  say  so  much  ?  It  was  the  glory  of  the  Popes 
that  they  placed  themselves,  with  inflexible  constancy,  like 
a  wall  and  a  bulwark  to  prevent  human  society  from  fall- 
ing back  into  the  ancient  superstition  and  savagery. 

"  Would  to  God  that  this  salutary  authority  had  never 
been  neglected  or  repudiated  !  Then,  assuredly,  civil  sove- 
reignty itself  would  not  have  lost  that  august  and  sacred 

*  Proverbs  xiv.  34.     The  Protestant  Version  says:   "  Sin  is  a  reproach 
to  any  people." 


WttA  T  THE  PAPACY  HAS  DONE.  335 

character  which  religion  had  bestowed  upon  it,  and  which 
alone  gave  to  the  obedience  of  the  subject  its  worth  and 
nobility ;  nor  should  we  have  witnessed  so  many  rebellions 
and  wars  which  have  filled  the  earth  with  blood  and 
misery ;  nor  would  realms  formerly  most  prosperous  and 
powerful  be  now  fallen  down  to  the  depths  of  helplessness 
and  oppressed  by  calamities  of  every  kind.  An  example 
of  this  is  afforded  by  the  Eastern  peoples,  who,  breaking 
asunder  the  sweet  ties  which  bound  them  to  this  Apostolic 
See,  have  forfeited  the  splendor  of  their  primitive  glory, 
their  fame  for  the  culture  of  the  arts  and  sciences,  and  their 
rank  among  the  nations." 

The  Pope  here  enumerates  the  special  benefits  for  which 
ungrateful  Italy  is  indebted  to  the  Papacy.  He  points  to 
the  great  names  shining  like  stars  of  the  first  magnitude 
along  the  illustrious  line  of  his  predecessors — great,  good, 
and  glorious  Pontiffs,  who  were  the  parents  and  protectors 
of  Italy  and  the  benefactors  of  the  human  race.  "  This 
great  city  itself,  the  seat  of  these  Pontiffs,  bears  witness  to 
the  countless  benefits  conferred  by  them ;  it  became  the 
strong  citadel  of  the  faith,  the  refuge  of  all  the  arts  of  civil- 
ization, the  abode  of  wisdom,  winning  for  itself  the  admira- 
tion and  reverence  of  the  whole  world.  As  the  greatness 
of  all  these  services  is  recorded  for  eternal  remembrance  in 
the  monuments  of  history,  it  is  easy  to  understand  that 
only  by  bitter  hatred  and  unworthy  falsehood,  uttered  for 
the  purpose  of  deceiving  the  unwary,  and  published  from 
pulpit  and  press,  could  this  Apostolic  See  have  been  repre 
sented  as  an  obstacle  to  the  civilization  of  Italy  or  to  the 
happiness  of  her  peoples. 

"  If,  therefore,  the  hopes  of  Italy  and  of  the  Christian 
world  are  founded  on  the  influence  attached  to  the  author- 
ity of  the  Holy  See,  an  influence  so  salutary  for  the  advan- 
tage and  welfare  of  all ;  if  they  also  are  placed  in  that  close 
bond  of  union  by  which  all  Christ's  faithful  people  are  held 
in  communion  with  the  Roman  Pontiff,  no  duty  for  us  is 
greater  than  to  maintain  secure  and  inviolate  the  dignity  of 
the  Roman  Chair,  than  to  strengthen  more  and  more  the 


336  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

connection  of  the  members  with  their  Head,  of  the  chil- 
dren with  their  Parent. 

"  Wherefore,  first  of  all,  in  order  to  assert  in  the  only 
way  now  possible  the  rights  and  the  liberty  of  this  Holy 
See,  we  declare  that  we  shall  never  cease  to  contend  for 
the  full  obedience  due  to  our  authority,  for  the  removal  of 
all  obstacles  put  in  the  way  of  the  full  and  free  exercise  of 
our  ministry  and  power,  and  for  our  restoration  to  that 
condition  of  things  in  which  the  provident  design  of  the 
Divine  Wisdom  had  formerly  placed  the  Roman  Pontiffs. 

"  And  in  demanding  such  restoration  we  are  moved  by 
no  ambition,  no  desire  of  domination,  but  only  by  the  best 
interests  of  our  office  and  by  the  sacred  oaths  we  have 
taken  ;  and,  besides,  not  only  because  the  civil  sovereignty 
is  necessary  for  the  protecting  and  preserving  of  the  full 
liberty  of  the  spiritual  power,  but  because,  moreover — a 
thing  in  itself  evident — whenever  there  is  question  of  the 
temporal  principality  of  the  Holy  See,  then  the  interests  of 
the  public  good  and  the  salvation  of  the  whole  of  human 
society  are  involved. 

"  Hence  it  is  that  in  the  fulfilment  of  our  duty,  which 
obliges  us  to  defend  the  rights  of  holy  Church,  we  iviu  \v 
and  confirm  by  this  letter  all  the  declarations  and  pro- 
testations which  our  predecessor,  Pius  IX.,  issued  and 
reiterated  both  agajnst  the  occupation  of  his  civil  princi- 
pality and  against  the  violation  of  the  rights  belonging  to 
the  Roman  Church. 

"  At  the  same  time  we  address  ourselves  to  sovereigns 
and  to  those  who  are  the  supreme  rulers  of  states,  and  im- 
plore them  again  and  again,  in  the  august  name  of  the 
Most  High  God,  not  to  reject  at  this  needful  time  the  aid 
offered  them  by  the  Church,  and  that  they  unite  in  friendly 
zeal  in  favor  of  that  great  source  of  authority  and  salvation, 
and  seek  to  be  united  to  her  more  and  more  by  the  ties  of 
hearty  love  and  reverence. 

"  God  grant  that,  discovering  the  truth  of  what  we  have 
been  saying,  and  being  themselves  convinced  that  the  doc- 
trine of  Christ,  as  Augustine  was  wont  to  say,  is  a  mighty 


337 


338  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

safeguard  to  the  state  ivlien  it  finds  obedient  observance*  and 
that  in  the  safety  of  the  Church  and  dutiful  obedience  to 
her  are  to  be  found  the  interests  of  the  public  surety  and 
tranquillity,  they  would  bestow  their  thought  and  care  in 
alleviating  the  evils  which  afflict  the  Church  and  her  visible 
Head !  Thereby  would  it  come  to  pass  that  the  peoples 
whom  they  govern,  entering  on  the  paths  of  justice  and 
peace,  would  enjoy  a  golden  age  of  prosperity  and  glory."  f 

Such  was  the  impressive  appeal  to  the  governments  of 
our  day,  reminding  them  that  those  who  had  the  temerity 
to  touch  and  to  change  the  great  principles  on  which  the 
God  whom  all  Christians  adore  has  established  the  Chris- 
tian order  in  society  were  moving  the  foundations  of  the 
earth,  letting  loose  the  earthquake,  the  whirlwind,  and  the 
flame,  and  opening  up  an  abyss  in  which  peoples  and  rulers 
will  be  surely  engulfed. 

He  therefore  adjures  them  by  the  august  name  of  the 
Most  High  God  to  listen  to  the  warning  words  of  the  Vicar 
of  Christ.  It  was  the  warning  of  a  prophet. 

Then,  remembering  that  the  family  is  the  organic  ele- 
ment from  which  the  state  springs ;  that  domestic  society 
is  the  nursery  in  which,  together  with  all  Christian  virtues, 
are  fostered  all  the  solid  and  noble  qualities  and  habits 
which  alone  make  great  citizens ;  that  on  the  Christian 
training  of  children  from  their  tender  years  must  spring,  as 
the  ripe  and  full  fruit  from  the  flower,  the  education — 
Christian  in  its  aims,  its  principles,  and  its  methods — which 
is  the  formative  force  of  the  modern  world,  he  thus  ad- 
dresses himself  to  the  bishops. on  the  family,  its  institu- 
tions and  its  education : 

"  In  the  next  place,  desiring  to  draw  more  closely  day 
by  day  the  bonds  which  unite  the  entire  Catholic  flock  with 
the  Supreme  Pastor,  we  here  address  ourselves  to  you,  Ven- 
erable Brothers,  with  especial  affection,  and  earnestly  be- 
seech you  to  display  your  priestly  zeal  and  pastoral  vigi- 
lance in  kindling  in  the  souls  of  your  people  the  love  of  our 

*  Ep.  138,  alias  5  ad  Marcellinum,  n.  5.        f  "  Acta,"  vol.  i.  pp.  44~52. 


EDUCATION  AND  THE  CHRISTIAN  FAMILY.         339 

holy  religion,  in  order  that  they  may  thereby  become  more 
closely  and  heartily  attached  to  this  chair  of  truth  and  jus- 
tice, accept  all  its  teachings  with  the  deepest  assent  of  mind 
and  will,  and  unhesitatingly  reject  all  opinions,  even  the 
most  wide-spread,  which  they  know  to  be  in  opposition  to 
the  doctrines  of  the  Church. 

"  On  this  point  the  Roman  Pontiffs  who  have  come  be- 
fore us,  and,  last  of  all,  Pius  IX.,  of  saintly  memory,  espe- 
cially in  the  Council  of  the  Vatican,  had  present  to  their 
minds  the  words  of  St.  Paul:  Beware  lest  any  man  cheat  you 
by  philosophy  and  vain  deceit  according  to  the  tradition  of  men, 
according  to  the  elements  of  the  world,  and  not  according  to 
Christ  ;*  hence  they  lost  no  needful  opportunity  to  con- 
demn spreading  errors  and  mark  them  with  the  apostolic 
censure.  All  these  condemnations  we,  following  the  exam- 
ple of  our  predecessors,  confirm  and  renew  from  this  apos- 
tolic seat  of  truth,  beseeching  fervently,  at  the  same  time, 
the  Father  of  lights  that  all  the  faithful,  being  perfectly  of 
'  one  accord  and  agreeing  in  sentiment,'  should  be  of  one 
mind  with  us  and  speak  the  same  thing. 

"Your  duty  it  is,  Venerable  Brothers,  to  bestow  unremit- 
ting care  on  scattering  the  seeds  of  the  heavenly  doctrines 
broadcast  over  the  field  of  the  Lord ;  to  make  Catholic 
teaching  penetrate,  in  good  time,  into  the  minds  of  the 
faithful ;  to  plant  it  deeply  there,  and  to  keep  it  safe  from 
admixture  with  corrupt  doctrines.  The  more  active  the 
enemies  of  religion  are  to  teach  the  unlearned,  the  young 
especially,  what  clouds  their  intellect  and  corrupts  their 
morals,  the  more  should  you  exert  yourselves  to  establish 
not  only  a  well-adapted  and  solid  method  of  instruction, 
but  a  method  in  every  way,  both  in  letters  and  in  disci- 
pline, in  conformity  with  the  Catholic  faith,  especially  as 
regards  mental  philosophy,  on  which  the  right  teaching  of 
all  the  other  sciences  depends  in  a  great  measure — a  phi- 
losophy such  as  shall  prepare  the  way  for  divine  revelation 
instead  of  aiming  at  overturning  it ;  which  shall  defend 

*  Colossians  ii.  8. 


3^0  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

revealed  truth,  as  in  their  writings  did  the  great  Augus- 
tine, the  Angelic  Doctor,  and  the  other  teachers  of  Christian 
wisdom. 

"  The  best  way  of  training  youth,  however — that  which 
conduces  to  preserve  the  integrity  of  both  faith  and  morals 
— should  begin  from  early  childhood  and  in  the  Christian 
home.  Unhappily,  the  Christian  family  in  our  times  has 
been  sadly  disturbed,  and  can  only  recover  its  proper  dig- 
nity by  being  governed  by  the  laws  under  which  it  was 
placed  in  the  Church  by  the  Divine  Author  of  both.  By 
raising  the  matrimonial  contract,  in  which  He  willed  us  to 
see  the  sign  of  His  own  union  with  the  Church,  to  the  dig- 
nity of  a  sacrament,  He  not  only  sanctified  the  union  of 
husband  and  wife,  but  also  provided  most  efficient  helps  for 
both  parents  and  children  to  fulfil  their  mutual  and  respec- 
tive duties,  and  thereby  the  more  easily  attain  to  everlasting 
life  and  the  happiness  of  the  present. 

"  But  impious  laws,  taking  no  account  of  the  sacredness 
of  this  great  sacrament,  placed  it  on  the  same  level  as  all 
merely  civil  contracts ;  and  the  deplorable  result  has  been 
that  citizens,  desecrating  the  holy  dignity  of  marriage,  have 
lived  in  legal  concubinage  instead  of  Christian  matrimony ; 
the  married  pair  have  violated  the  fidelity  pledged  to  each 
other;  the  children  born  to  them  have  refused  them  obedi 
ence;  and,  what  is  most  scandalous  and  most  baneful  to 
public  morality,  very  often  unhallowed  love  was  followed 
by  fatal  quarrels.  All  these  unhappy  and  deplorable  results 
must  move  your  zeal  to  warn  your  faithful  peoples  assidu- 
ously and  fervently  to  have  a  reverent  regard  for  the  doc- 
trine of  the  Church  on  holy  matrimony,  and  to  observe 
scrupulously  the  laws  of  the  Church  regulating  the  mutual 
duties  of  parents  and  children. 

"  From  this  we  shall  obtain  one  blessed  fruit — that  every 
member  of  Christian  society  will  reform  his  own  conduct 
and  outward  manner  of  living.  The  decayed  or  degenerate 
trunk  of  a  tree  puts  forth  shoots  that  are  worse  still  and 
bear  unhappy  fruit.  So  does  the  moral  evil  which  infects 
the  tree  of  domestic  life  become  a  contagion  which  commu- 


UTILITY  OF  PIOUS  CONFRATERNITIES.  341 

nicates  its  virus  to  the  community  and  yields  a  baneful 
harvest  for  public  life. 

"On  the  contrary,  where  Christian  families  are  governed 
by  the  law  of  Christ,  all  their  members  are  habituated  by 
degrees  to  cherish  religion  and  piety,  to  look  with  horror 
on  false  and  pernicious  doctrines,  to  practise  virtue,  to 
obey  their  superiors,  and  to  control  that  tendency  to  self- 
seeking  which  is  the  root  of  human  degeneracy  and 
degradation. 

"  Toward  this  purpose  not  a  little  help  will  be  found  in 
the  proper  encouragement  and  direction  of  the  pious  asso- 
ciations which  have  sprung  up  in  our  day  to  the  great  bene- 
fit of  Catholic  interests. 

"  These  are  lofty  objects,  requiring  superhuman  efforts, 
which  we  hope  and  wish  to  see  realized.  But  God  has 
made  the  nations  of  the  earth  susceptible  of  healing,  since 
He  founded  the  Church  for  the  salvation  of  mankind,  and 
promised  that  His  help  should  not  fail  her  to  the  end  of 
time ;  we  therefore  firmly  trust  that  by  working  together 
we  shall  enable  the  human  race,  warned  by  so  many  evils 
and  calamities,  to  seek  for  salvation  and  prosperity  in  obe- 
dience to  the  Church  and  in  listening  to  the  infallible  teach- 
ing of  this  Apostolic  Chair."* 

A  few  months  later  Leo  XIII.  will  seize  an  opportunity 
for  outlining  his  doctrinal  plan :  "  From  the  very  first  days 
of  our  pontificate,  and  from  the  elevation  of  the  Apostolic 
Chair,  we  turned  our  eyes  toward  the  society  of  our  day,  to 
ascertain  its  condition,  investigate  its  needs,  and  to  counsel 
the  remedial  measures.  ..." 

And  what  principally  arrested  the  Pontiff's  attention? 
".  .  .  The  waning  of  truth — not  only  of  the  truths  of 
the  supernatural  order  which  are  known  by  the  light  of 
faith,  but  of  natural  truth,  both  speculative  and  practical ; 
the  prevalence  of  the  most  baneful  errors,  .  .  .  disorders 
everywhere  increasing.  .  .  . 

"  The  most  potent  cause  of  such  moral  ruin  is  the  sepa- 

*  Ibidem. 


342  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

ration,  the  attempted  apostasy,  of  actual  society  from 
Christ  and  from  His  Church,  in  which  alone  resides  the 
virtue  sufficient  to  repair  all  the  enormous  evils  done  it." 
The  conviction  that,  under  God,  the  Church  alone  estab- 
lished by  Him  was  able  to  cope  with  the  manifold  evils 
which  were  desolating  society,  makes  him,  almost  at  the 
outset,  renew  the  solemn  protest  of  Pius  IX.  on  his  death- 
bed against  the  usurpers  of  the  temporal  principality  of  the 
Holy  See.  Then  he  unfolds  his  plan  for  combating  the 
dominant  anti-social  errors. 


CHAPTER  XXI. 

LEO   XIII.   FACE   TO    FACE   WITH   ANTICHRIST   IN   ROME. 

O  Cardinal  Simeoni,  who  had  been  Pius  IX.'s  last  and 
trusted  Secretary  of  State,  Leo  XIII.  had  substi- 
tuted, on  March  5,  Cardinal  Alexander  Franchi,  for  several 
years  the  prefect  of  the  Congregation  de  Propaganda  Fide, 
in  one  respect  the  most  important  charge  in  the  Church. 
The  new  Secretary  of  State,  whose  position  at  the  head 
of  the  Propaganda  had  brought  him  into  personal  contact 
with  the  bishops  of  four-fifths  of  the  globe,  and  who  was 
thoroughly  acquainted  with  the  affairs  of  all  the  churches 
outside  of  Italy,  Spain,  and  France,  was  a  man  of  singular 
ability.  His  vast  experience,  his  quick  tact,  sure  judg- 
ment, and  amiable  disposition  enabled  him  to  overcome 
obstacles  and  to  settle  difficulties  which  had  defied  all  the 
skill  and  labor  of  others. 

One  of  his  first  acts  was  a  hurried  journey  to  Ireland, 
where  the  question  of  university  education,  the  first  start- 
ling alarms  of  an  approaching  famine,  and  the  reappearance 
of  secret  societies  begotten  of  starvation  and  coercion  were 
rendering  the  labors  of  the  bishops  one  of  extraordinary 
difficulty.  His  brief  visit  is  still  gratefully  remembered  by 
the  Irish  ;  for  it  testified  to  the  Holy  Father's  intense  de- 
sire to  know  the  true  condition  of  things  in  that  unfortu- 
nate land  of  unrest  and  misgovernment. 

Certain  it  is,  as  we  shall  see,  that  Leo  XIII.  had  a  clear 
conception  of  the  just  claims  of  Ireland  to  self-government 
and  to  a  full  and  practical  religious  liberty,  and  that  his 
efforts  thenceforward  aimed  at  keeping  the  Irish  Catholics 
and  the  National  party  within  the  strict  bounds  of  con- 
stitutional agitation,  legal,  orderly,  and  peaceful  methods, 
while  seeking  for  the  justice  which  so  many  illustrious  Eng- 
lishmen acknowledged  to  be  due  to  them. 


344  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIn- 

Cardinal  Franchi  had  no  little  share  in  Leo  XII I. 's  so- 
licitude for  the  Asiatic  missions,  with  whose  every  need  he 
was  thoroughly  acquainted.  The  Pope's  generous  policy 
toward  the  Eastern  peoples,  and  his  warm  sympathies  for 
the  forlorn  condition  of  the  Christian  populations,  were 
those  of  his  Secretary  of  State,  who  seconded  in  every 
\\ay  the  superhuman  activity  with  which  the  Holy  Father 
pushed  forward  every  detail  of  the  vast  administration  of 
the  Church.  But  he  was  stricken  down  by  a  fatal  illness 
on  July  31,  in  the  very  beginning  of  his  career,  just  when 
Leo  XIII.  had  initiated  him  in  his  grand  plan  for  advanc- 
ing among  the  nations  the  cause  of  Christ,  of  His  Church, 
of  society  and  civilization,  as  against  all  their  united  and 
powerful  enemies  in  our  day. 

Cardinal  Lorenzo  Nina  was  chosen  to  succeed  Cardinal 
Franchi.  To  set  at  rest  at  once  and  for  ever  all  doubts 
and  hypotheses  about  his  principles  and  policy,  Leo  XIII. 
addressed  to  the  new  Secretary  of  State  a  letter,  dated 
August  27,  which  contains  a  retrospect  of  the  first  six 
months  of  his  Pontificate,  and  defines  luminously  the  lines 
on  which  he  intends  to  govern  the  Church,  and  to  labor 
for  the  interests  of  Christianity  and  the  nations. 

"  It  was  a  great  misfortune  and  a  great  grief  for  us," 
he  says,  "  to  have  so  suddenly  lost  Cardinal  Alexander 
Franchi,  our  Secretary  of  State.  We  called  him  to  this 
high  office  because  of  the  confidence  inspired  by  his  un- 
common gifts  of  mind  and  heart,  and  the  long  services  he 
had  rendered  to  the  Church.  He  so  fully  answered  to  all 
our  expectations  during  the  short  time  he  labored  by  our 
side  that  his  memory  shall  never  by  us  be  forgotten,  and 
among  those  who  come  after  us,  as  among  the  living,  his 
name  shall  remain  ever  dear  and  blessed. 

"  As,  however,  it  has  pleased  our  Lord  to  subject  us 
to  this  trial,  we  adore  with  submissive  will  His  divine 
counsels.  And  turning  our  attention  to  the  choice  of 
a  successor,  we  have  cast  our  eyes  on  you,  my  Lord  Car- 
dinal, whose  skill  in  conducting  affairs  was  well  known  to 
us,  as  well  as  your  firmness  of  purpose  and  the  generous 


LUMINOUS  EXPOSITION  OF  LEO  XII i:S  POLICY.      345 

spirit  of  self-sacrifice  towards  the  Church  which  animates 
you. 

"  As  you  were  entering  on  your  charge  we  deemed  it 
proper  to  address  you  the  present  letter,  in  order  to  make 
known  our  mind  to  you  concerning  several  most  important 
points  on  which  your  unceasing  care  must  be  in  a  very  spe- 
cial manner  bestowed. 

"  In  the  very  first  days  of  our  Pontificate,  and  from  the 
height  of  this  Apostolic  Chair,  we  turned  our  eyes  to  soci- 
ety as  it  is  at  present,  to  ascertain  its  condition,  to  examine 
its  needs,  and  to  discover  proper  remedies.  Since  then,  in 
the  encyclical  letters  addressed  to  all  our  brother-bishops,  we 
lamented  the  decadence  not  only  of  the  supernatural  truths 
made  known  to  us  by  faith,  but  of  the  natural  truths, 
both  speculative  and  practical,  the  prevalence  of  the  most 
fatal  errors,  and  the  very  serious  peril  of  society  from  the 
ever-increasing  disorders  which  confront  it  on  every  side. 

"  We  said  that  the  chief  reason  of  this  great  moral  ruin 
was  the  openly  proclaimed  separation  and  the  attempted 
apostasy  of  the  society  of  our  day  from  Christ  and  His 
Church,  which  alone  has  the  power  to  repair  all  the  evils  of 
society.  In  the  noonday  light  of  facts  we  then  showed 
that  the  Church  founded  by  Christ  to  renovate  the  world, 
from  her  first  appearance  in  it  began  to  give  it  great  com- 
fort by  her  superhuman  virtue ;  that  in  the  darkest  and 
most  destructive  periods  the  Church  was  the  only  beacon- 
light  which  made  the  road  of  life  safe  to  the  nations,  the 
only  refuge  where  they  found  peace  and  safety. 

"  From  this  it  was  easy  to  conclude  that  if  in  past  ages 
the  Church  was  able  to  bestow  upon  the  world  such  signal 
benefits,  she  can  also  do  it  most  certainly  at  present ;  that 
the  Church,  as  every  Catholic  believes,  being  ever  ani- 
mated by  the  Spirit  of  Christ — who  promised  her  His 
unfailing  assistance — was  by  Him  established  teacher  of 
truth  and  guardian  of  a  holy  and  faultless  law ;  and  that, 
being  such,  she  possesses  at  this  day  all  the  force  necessary 
to  resist  the  intellectual  and  moral  decay  which  sickens 
society,  and  to  restore  the  latter  to  health. 


346  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

"  And  inasmuch  as  unprincipled  foes,  in  order  to  bring 
her  into  disrepute  and  to  draw  on  her  the  enmity  of  the 
world,  continue  to  propagate  against  her  the  gravest  cal- 
umnies, we  endeavored  from  the  beginning  to  dissipate 
these  prejudices  and  to  expose  these  falsehoods,  resting 
assured  that  the  nations,  when  they  come  to  know  the 
Church  as  she  really  is,  and  in  her  own  beneficent  nature, 
will  everywhere  willingly  return  to  her  bosom. 

"  Urged  by  this  purpose,  we  resolved  also  to  make  our 
voice  heard  to  those  who  rule  the  nations,  inviting  them 
earnestly  not  to  reject,  in  these  times  of  pressing  need,  the 
strong  support  which  the  Church  offers  them.  And  under 
the  impulse  of  our  apostolic  charity  we  addressed  our- 
selves even  to  those  who  are  not  bound  to  us  by  the  tie 
of  the  Catholic  religion,  desiring,  as  we  did,  that  their  sub- 
jects also  should  experience  the  kindly  influence  of  that 
divine  institution. 

"  You  are  well  aware,  my  Lord  Cardinal,  that  in  fol- 
lowing out  this  impulse  of  our  heart  we  addressed  our- 
selves also  to  the  mighty  emperor  of  the  illustrious  German 
nation — a  nation  which  demanded  our  special  attention 
on  account  of  the  hard  conditions  there  imposed  on 
Catholics.  Our  words,  inspired  solely  by  the  desire  to  see 
religious  peace  restored  to  Germany,  were  favorably  received 
by  the  emperor  and  had  the  good  effect  to  lead  to  friendly 
negotiations.  In  these  our  purpose  was,  not  to  rest  satis- 
fied with  a  simple  suspension  of  hostilities,  but,  removing 
every  obstacle  in  the  way,  to  come  to  a  true,  solid,  and  last- 
ing peace. 

"The  importance  of  this  aim  was  justly  appreciated  by 
those  who  hold  in  their  hands  the  destinies  of  that  empire, 
and  this  will  lead  them,  as  we  sincerely  trust,  to  join  hands 
with  us  in  attaining  it.  The  Church  assuredly  would  re- 
joice to  see  peace  brought  back  to  that  great  nation  ;  but  the 
empire  itself  would  not  rejoice  less  that,  consciences  being 
appeased,  the  sons  of  the  Catholic  Church  would  be  found 
still — what  they  had  at  other  times  proved  themselves  to 
be — the  most  faithful  and  the  most  generous  of  subjects. 


THE  APOSTOLIC  SEE  AND  THE  NATIONS.  347 

"  Nor  could  the  countries  of  the  East  escape  our  father- 
ly vigilance ;  there  the  great  events  which  are  just  now  in 
course  of  accomplishment  are,  perhaps,  preparing  a  better 
future  for  religious  interests.  Nothing  shall  be  omitted  by 
the  Apostolic  See  to  promote  these  ;  and  we  cherish  the 
hope  that  the  illustrious  churches  of  these  regions  shall  at 
length  come  to  live  a  fruitful  life  and  to  shed  abroad  their 
ancient  splendor. 

"  These  brief  remarks  reveal  sufficiently,  my  Lord  Car- 
dinal, our  design  of  extending  largely  the  beneficent  action 
of  the  Church  and  the  Papacy  throughout  modern  society 
in  all  its  degrees.  It  is,  therefore,  necessary  that  you  also 
should  apply  all  your  lights  and  all  your  activity  to  carry- 
ing out  this  design  which  God  has  inspired  us  with. 

"  Besides  that,  you  shall  have  to  give  your  serious  atten- 
tion to  another  matter  of  the  highest  importance — that  is, 
to  the  very  difficult  condition  created  for  the  Head  of  the 
Church  in  Italy  and  in  Rome  when  they  had  despoiled 
him  of  the  temporal  power  which  Providence  so  many  cen- 
turies ago  had  bestowed  on  him  to  protect  the  freedom  of 
his  spiritual  power. 

"  We  do  not  wish  to  stop  to  reflect  here  that  the  viola- 
tion of  the  most  sacred  interests  of  the  Apostolic  See  and 
of  the  Roman  Pontiff  is  fatal  also  to  the  welfare  and  the 
tranquillity  of  the  nations,  who,  seeing  the  most  ancient 
and  august  rights  violated  in  the  person  of  Christ's  Vicar, 
feel  their  deep  notions  of  duty  and  justice  seriously  weak- 
ened, their  respect  for  law  weakened,  and  thus  the  way 
is  opened-  to  destroy  the  very  possibility  of  living  together 
in  society. 

"  Nor  shall  we  delay  you  to  consider  that  the  Catho- 
lics of  the  different  States  can  never  feel  at  rest  till  their 
Supreme  Pontiff,  the  supreme  teacher  of  their  faith,  the 
moderator  of  their  consciences,  is  in  the  full  enjoyment  of 
a  true  liberty  and  a  real  independence. 

"  We  cannot,  however,  help  observing  that  while  we 
need  for  our  spiritual  power,  both  on  account  of  its  divine 
origin  and  superhuman  destination,  and  for  the  needful 


348  LIFE  OF  LEO  AY//. 

exercise  of  its  beneficent  influence  in  favor  of  all  human 
societies,  the  fullest  and  most  perfect  liberty,  on  the  other 
hand  the  present  conditions  in  which  we  are  placed  so 
hamper  and  limit  it  that  we  find  it  most  difficult  to  govern 
the  universal  Church.  The  thing  is  notorious  and  proved 
by  daily  occurrences.  The  solemn  complaints  uttered  by 
our  predecessor,  Pius  IX.,  in  the  memorable  Consistorial 
Allocution  of  March  12,  1877,  may  with  equal  reason  be 
repeated  by  us,  with  the  addition  of  many  other  grievances 
arising  from  the  new  obstacles  opposed  to  the  free  exercise 
of  our  power. 

"  We  have  not  only  to  deplore,  as  did  our  illustrious 
predecessor,  the  suppression  of  the  Religious  Orders,  which 
deprives  the  Pontiff  of  a  precious  aid  in  the  congregations 
which  transact  the  most  important  affairs  of  the  Church. 
We  grieve  that  divine  worship  sees  its  ministers  taken  away 
by  the  law  on  military  conscription,  which  compels  all, 
without  distinction,  to  serve  in  the  army;  that  they  with- 
draw from  our  control  and  that  of  the  clergy  the  institu- 
tions of  charity  and  beneficence  founded  in  Rome  by  the 
Popes,  or  by  Catholic  nations  who  confided  them  to  the 
watchful  care  of  the  Church.  We  grieve,  with  the  intense, 
bitter  grief  which  fills  our  heart  as  a  father  and  a  pastor,  to 
find  that  we  are  compelled  to  see  beneath  our  eyes  in  this 
Rome,  the  centre  of  the  Catholic  religion,  the  progress 
made  by  heresy,  heterodox  temples  and  schools  built  freely 
and  in  a  great  number,  and  to  have  to  observe  the  perver- 
sion which  is  the  consequence,  especially  among  young 
people,  who  are  given  an  anti-Catholic  education.  But,  as 
if  all  this  were  nothing,  they  are  endeavoring  to  nullify  the 
very  acts  of  our  spiritual  jurisdiction. 

"  It  is  well  known  to  you,  my  Lord  Cardinal,  how,  after 
the  occupation  of  Rome,  wishing  to  calm  to  some  extent 
the  consciences  of  Catholics  who  felt  very  uneasy  about  the 
fate  of  their  Chief  Pastor,  the  government  publicly  and 
solemnly  declared  that  they  would  leave  the  nomination 
of  the  bishops  of  Italy  entirely  in  the  hands  of  the  Pope. 
Then,  under  the  pretext  that  the  acts  of  their  canonical 


TYRANNY  OF  THE  ITALIAN  GOVERNMENT.        349 

institution  were  not  submitted  to  the  government  placet, 
not  only  were  the  new  bishops  deprived  of  their  revenues 
— thus  throwing  on  the  Holy  See  the  heavy  burden  of 
supporting  them — but,  moreover,  to  the  great  spiritual  in- 
jury of  their  flocks,  the  government  would  not  even  acknow- 
ledge the  acts  of  episcopal  jurisdiction  performed  by  them, 
such  as  the  nomination  of  parish  priests  or  other  beneficed 
persons. 

"  And  when,  to  obviate  all  these  serious  evils,  the  Holy 
See  tolerated  that  the  newly-elected  bishops  of  Italy  should 
present  their  bulls  of  nomination  and  of  institution  carried 
out  in  due  canonical  form,  the  condition  of  the  Church  was 
in  no  whit  improved  thereby.  Notwithstanding  this  act  of 
presentation,  for  one  futile  reason  or  another  many  bishops 
continued  to  be  deprived  of  their  revenues  and  to  have 
their  jurisdiction  ignored.  Those  who  can  obtain  their 
object  see  their  petition  sent  from  one  office  to  another 
and  subjected  to  endless  delays.  Men  of  the  highest  merit, 
distinguished  by  their  learning  and  virtue,  deemed  by  the 
Sovereign  Pontiff  worthy  of  filling  the  highest  degrees  in 
the  ecclesiastical  hierarchy,  are  forced  to  see  themselves 
subjected  to  the  most  humiliating  and  prying  disquisitions, 
as  if  they  were  vulgarians  under  the  ban  of  suspicion.  The 
venerable  man  designated  by  us  to  administer  the  Church 
of  Perugia  in  our  name,  although  placed  already  at  the 
head  of  another  church,  and  legally  acknowledged  therein, 
after  a  long  period  of  waiting  still  vainly  expects  an  an- 
swer. Thus  it  is  that,  with  a  paltry  cunning,  they  take 
away  from  the  Church  with  the  left  hand  what  mere  policy 
feigned  to  give  her  with  the  right. 

"To  render  this  state  of  things  still  more  painful,  they 
lately  began  to  assert  the  rights  of  royal  patronage  in 
several  dioceses  of  Italy,  with  such  exaggerated  pretensions, 
accompanied  by  such  odious  measures,  that  the  Archbishop 
of  Chieti  was  judicially  informed  that  they  denied  his  juris- 
diction, declared  his  appointment  null,  and  ignored  even  his 
episcopal  character ! 

"  It  is  not  to  our  purpose  to  insist  on  the  nullity  of  such 


350  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

rights,  which  besides  was  confessed  by  not  a  few  of  our 
adversaries.  It  is  sufficient  to  recall  the  fact  that  the  Apos- 
tolic See,  to  which  is  reserved  to  provide  for  all  episcopal 
sees,  was  only  in  the  habit  of  granting  the  right  of  patron- 
age to  such  sovereigns  as  had  deserved  well  of  the  Church 
by  supporting  her  interests,  promoting  her  extension,  in- 
creasing her  patrimony ;  and  that  all  who  combat  her  by 
impugning  her  rights,  appropriating  her  possessions,  become 
by  that  alone,  in  accordance  with  the  canons,  incapable  of 
exercising  such  patronage. 

"  The  facts  touched  upon  so  far  evidently  indicate  the 
purpose  of  continuing  in  Italy  a  system  of  ever-increasing 
hostility  toward  the  Church,  and  clearly  show  what  sort  of 
liberty  is  kept  in  store  for  her,  and  with  what  kind  of  re- 
spect they  intend  to  surround  the  Head  of  the  Catholic 
religion. 

"  In  this  most  deplorable  condition  of  things  we  are 
not  ignorant,  my  Lord  Cardinal,  of  the  sacred  duties  im- 
posed upon  us  by  our  sacred  ministry ;  and,  with  our  eyes 
fixed  on  heaven,  with  our  soul  strengthened  by  the  assur- 
ance of  the  divine  help,  we  shall  study  never  to  be  unfaith- 
ful to  them.  .  .  ."* 

We  have  rather  anticipated  the  order  of  events  to  sub- 
mit this  official  programme  of  Leo.  XIII. 's  policy  to  the 
judgment  of  the  reader.  It  discloses  clearly  the  grand 
purpose  of  his  reign :  to  make  rulers  and  peoples  acknow- 
ledge the  Church  as  their  divinely  appointed  guide  and 
their  safeguard  against  social  errors  and  anarchy. 

The  first  encyclical  of  Leo  XIII.  was,  indeed,  a  disap- 
pointment to  the  Italian  Radicals  and  to  all  others  who 
hoped  or  fancied  that  the  new  Pope  would  deviate  from  the 
policy  of  his  predecessor,  shake  hands  with  King  Umberto, 
and  become  reconciled  with  Antichrist  and  the  Revolution 
in  the  persons  of  those  who,  in  the  cabinet  of  the  Quirinal  or 
in  the  Parliament  of  Montecitorio,  were  incessantly  plot- 
ting and  planning  to  make  Rome  intolerable  to  the  Pope,  to 
see  it  rid  of  the  last  cardinal,  the  last  monk,  the  last  priest. 

*  "  Ada,"  i.  pp.  103-111. 


LEO  XIII.  AND  GERMANY.  351 

No  doubt  on  that  memorable  Easter  Sunday,  April  21, 
1878,  when  the  encyclical  Inscrutabili  was  published,  the 
prime  minister,  Depretis,  and  his  associates  of  all  revolution- 
ary and  anti-Christian  hues,  were  firmly  convinced  that  the 
German  emperor  and  his  powerful  arch-chancellor  were  the 
firm  and  devoted  allies  of  the  new  Italian  kingdom,  and 
that  they,  like  all  the  Great  Powers,  had  as  good  as  set  their 
seal  of  sanction  on  the  "  facts  accomplished  "  in  Rome  and 
in  Italy  We  shall  see  how  Leo  XIII.  defeated  all  their 
hopes. 

Certain  it  is  that  Leo  XIII.,  as  we  read  in  his  own 
words  quoted  above,  seems  to  have  taken  the  initiative  in 
his  peaceful  strategy  against  the  Kulturkampf  by  writing 
himself  to  the  Emperor  William.  It  is  also  certain,  from 
the  discourse  delivered  at  what  may  be  called  and  what  is 
regarded  in  Germany  as  the  end  of  this  war  "against  the 
Church,  on  April  14,  1886,  by  Prince  Bismarck  himself, 
that  he  was  quite  disposed  to  meet  the  Pope.  Why  the 
religious  peace  was  not  then  concluded  was  due  to  mis- 
understandings on  both  sides,  but  principally,  if  not  solely, 
to  the  national  anti-Catholic  and  anti-Papal  sentiment  in 
the  German  Reichstag  and  the  nation,  which  persisted  in 
regarding  the  Papacy  in  the  Franco  German  war  as  being 
"  the  rear-guard  of  the  French  army." 

In  another  chapter  we  shall  have  to  discuss  fully  the 
Kulturkampf,  and  study  the  strategy  with  which  Leo  XIII. 
sought  its  extinction  and  succeeded.  We  can  only  say 
now  that  even  when  diplomatic  relations  were  taken  up  and 
suspended  and  renewed,  and  then  seemed  about  to  fail  ut- 
terly in  their  object,  the  Pope  pursued  his  glorious  plan  of 
enlightening  peoples,  rulers,  and  governments  on  their  dan- 
gers and  the  only  way  out  of  them,  till  it  grew  on  the  mind 
of  the  German  emperor,  his  chancellor,  ministers,  and  his 
enlightened,  conservative  aristocracy,  that  Leo  XIII.  was 
God's  prophet,  sent  to  enlighten  and  to  save  the  modern 
social  world,  and  that  Catholicism,  where  it  is  left  free  and 
fostered  by  the  civil  authorities,  is  the  great  conservative, 
vital  force  of  the  nations. 


352  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

The  Pope  also  wrote  to  the  Emperor  Alexander  II.  of 
Russia  and  to  the  president  of  the  Swiss  Confederation  ; 
for  in  both  of  these  countries  Catholics  were  sorely  op- 
pressed, and  the  Holy  Father  trusted  to  make  both  of  these 
governments  understand  that  their  interest  as  well  as  their 
duty  lay  in  protecting,  not  enslaving,  the  Church.  How 
far  he  succeeded  the  sequel  will  also  show. 

What  he  purposed  doing  for  the  Christians  of  the 
Turkish  Empire  we  have  just  seen.  But  no  mention  is 
made  of  the  great  American  continent.  In  the  Canadian 
Confederation,  however,  as  well  as  in  the  United  States,  the 
Sovereign  Pontiff  was  left  absolutely  free  to  govern  the 
Church  as  he  chose.  In  Portuguese  and  Spanish  America 
the  secret  anti-Christian  societies  had  long  made  their  home. 
In  the  last  century  they  had  planted  their  offshoots  in  the 
then  flourishing  colonies  dependent  on  the  two  kingdoms 
of  the  Spanish  Peninsula,  and  had  cast  deep  roots  in  that 
virgin  soil,  waxing  strong  and  spreading  with  the  vigor 
and  rapidity  of  tropical  vegetation.  When  the  great  Catho- 
lic teaching  communities  were  suppressed  there  by  the  two 
metropolitan  governments,  society  and  education  were  like 
the  palm  and  date  trees  left  without  the  care  of  the  hus- 
bandman. The  terrible  parasites  of  scepticism  and  unbelief 
had  soon  held  them  in  their  deadly  clasp,  and  there  was  no 
one  to  lay  the  axe  to  the  root  of  these  creepers. 

The  only  hope  for  religion  in  Mexico,  as  in  Brazil  and 
all  South  and  Central  America,  would  be  in  annexation  to 
the  United  States,  in  the  introduction  of  American  institu- 
tions and  a  plentiful  injection  of  American  blood,  American 
practical  sense,  political  conservatism,  reverence  for  religion, 
and  the  full  liberty  for  the  Holy  See  to  regulate  the  Catho- 
lic interests  of  the  southern,  as  it  does  that  of  the  northern, 
continent. 

But  the  Depretis  cabinet  had  their  strategy — a  very  ra- 
dical and  thorough  one,  too — by  which  they  meant  to  de- 
stroy not  only  the  educational  and  missionary  resources  of 
the  Church  in  Rome  and  in  the  kingdom  of  Italy,  but  the 
very  idea  of  Christianity  in  the  minds  of  the  people,  and 


A  CARNIVAL  OF  IMPIETY  AND  BLASPHEMY.       353 

thereby  the  very  groundwork  on  which  rests  the  possibility 
of  the  existence  of  the  Church  among  a  people. 

Further  on  we  shall  come  to  the  quasi-confiscation  of  the 
Propaganda  property.  Now  let  us  see  the  war  in  Rome 
itself. 

Whether  the  encyclical  Inscrutabili  had  convinced  the 
anti-Christian  societies  dominating  both  Italy  and  France 
that  Leo  XIII.  thoroughly  understood  the  war  carried  on 
by  them  against  the  Church,  the  very  structure  of  Christian 
society,  and  the  civilization  which  had  sprung  therefrom, 
or  whether  they  had  made  up  their  minds  to  declare  open 
war  against  the  Pontiff  and  the  Church  of  which  he  was  the 
head,  the  year  1878  offered  them  a  most  favorable  oppor- 
tunity of  solemnly  proclaiming  their  purpose. 

It  was  the  centenary  year  of  the  death  of  Voltaire. 

The  conspirators  against  the  Christian  order  on  both 
sides  of  the  Alps  announced  that  they  would  meet  at 
Rome  in  the  month  of  May,  and  there  celebrate  the  death 
— the  apotheosis,  as  they  termed  it — of  the  man  whose  life- 
long watchword  against  Christ  had  been,  Ecrasez  finfdme 
— "  Crush  the  man  of  infamy  !  " 

It  is  well  to  recall  this  occurrence,  because  it  places  the 
civilized  world  face  to  face  with  the  reality,  with  the  true 
enemy  whom  Leo  XIII.  has  had  to  contend  with.  It  will 
enable  all  who  still  believe  in  Christ,  even  though  they  do 
not  acknowledge  Leo  XIII.  as  their  spiritual  guide,  to 
appreciate  the  nature  of  the  straggle  in  which  he  is  the 
central  figure. 

And  so  Rome,  under  the  cross  of  Savoy,  beheld  those 
who  administered  her  government,  sat  foremost  in  her 
legislative  halls,  on  the  judicial  bench,  in  all  the  public 
offices ;  the  litterateurs  who  had  been  the  apostles  of  in 
credulity,  of  revolution,  and  the  apologists  of  impiety;  the 
journalists  who  upheld  the  spoliation  of  the  Papacy,  and 
those  who  advocated  in  no  uncertain  tones  the  abolition  of 
the  existing  royalty — all  joined  together  in  solemn  conclave 
and  in  the  orgies  of  intellectual  licentiousness,  within  sight 
of  the  Vatican  and  the  Quirinal.  And  with  them  were  the 


354  L1FE  OF  LEO 

men  who  were  fast  turning  France  into  the  Republic  of 
1793,  or  aiming  at  one  vast  Commune  for  their  country  on 
the  model  of  that  of  1871. 

This  meeting  accentuated,  to  use  a  current  expression, 
the  fierce  hostility  of  the  French  and  Italian  Liberal  (!) 
press  against  the  Holy  See  and  the  reigning  Pontiff.  There 
\\fere  sessions  after  sessions  held  in  the  halls  where  the 
Roman  youth  had  been  formerly  taught  the  sublime  truths 
of  the  Christian  religion  and  the  benefits  it  had  conferred 
on  mankind.  It  was  a  carnival  of  blasphemy  and  of  cow- 
ar.lly  outrage  against  the  Pontiff  shut  up  helpless  in  the 
Vatican,  and  against  all  that  the  Catholic  and  the  Christian 
world  held  to  be  most  sacred  or  most  venerable. 

In  the  English-speaking  world  these  occurrences  were 
not  heard  of  or  only  received  a  passing  notice.  The  sig- 
nificance, the  deadly  importance  of  these  anti-Christian 
manifestations  was  understood  only  by  the  few.  And 
what  could  the  few  do  to  awaken  public  attention  to  the 
designs  and  progress  of  that  power  which  threatens  the 
destruction  of  the  moral  world  ?  It  is  only  when  such  fear- 
ful outbursts  of  the  spirit  of  disorder  as  the  riots  in  London 
and  in  Belgium,  and  even  the  labor  troubles  in  the  United 
States,  happen  to  startle  us  from  our  lethargy,  our  dream 
of  fancied  security  against  socialistic  revolution,  that  we 
begin  to  reflect  upon  Leo  XIII.'s  warnings  and  lessons. 
But  surely  the  Voltairean  and  anti-Christian  centenary 
feast  at  Rome  in  May,  1878,  should,  even  now  at  eight 
years'  distance,  make  us  think  seriously  on  the  fault  com- 
mitted by  the  civilized  world  when  they  permitted  Victor 
Emmanuel  to  take  possession  of  the  city  of  the  holy  apos- 
tles. 

But  we  must  not  imagine  that  the  true  Rome — the 
Rome  and  the  people  who  remained  faithful  to  Christ  and 
His  Vicar,  as  distinguished  from  the  new  Rome,  the  Pied- 
montese,  with  the  scum  of  all  Italy  whom  they  had  gath- 
ered into  it  —did  not  resent  the  insult  to  their  religion  and 
to  its  Pontiff. 

They  felt  these  satanical  festivities  to  be  directed  against 


ACTS  OF  RE  PA  RA  TION  B  Y  CHRIS  TIA  N  ROMA  NS.      355 

Christ  Himself,  and  they  spontaneously  set  about  repairing 
the  outrage  by  solemn  devotions  in  the  churches  and  by  no 
less  solemn  protestations  addressed  to  the  Holy  Father. 
Rome  has  been  for  many  centuries  renowned  for  her  ad- 
mirable guilds  and  charitable  societies.  These  comprise 
the  very  highest  nobles  as  well  as  the  simple  artisan. 
They  combined,  in  the  last  years  of  Pius  IX.,  in  a  great 
union  called,  after  him,  La  Fedcrazione  Piana.  They  ex- 
tended their  labors  to  the  protection  of  Catholic  interests, 
as  well  as  to  charity  and  beneficence. 

The  union  chose  the  feast  of  the  Ascension  of  our  Lord, 
which  happened  on  May  30,  to  present  themselves  before 
Leo  XIII.  and  enter  a  solemn  protest  in  the  name  of  all 
true  Romans  and  all  patriotic  Italians  against  the  desecra- 
tion of  the  Eternal  City  by  the  disciples  of  Voltaire  and 
Antichrist.  It  was  a  touching  scene,  and  the  Pope,  as  well 
as  all  who  were  present  on  the  occasion,  felt  it.  To  their 
address  he  answered,  impressing  on  them  and  on  all  Chris- 
tians the  importance  of  repairing  the  outrage  offered  to  the 
Divine  Majesty  by  this  unparalleled  outpouring  of  blas- 
phemy. He  especially  felicitated  them,  the  representa- 
tives of  the  Christian  Rome,  on  their  courage  and  deter- 
mination. 

It  was  not  the  only  counter-demonstration  which 
showed  the  Holy  Father  how  deeply  all  classes  of  Romans 
and  Italians  resented  the  abominable  impiety  which  had 
run  riot  in  Rome  during  the  month  especially  dedicated  to 
recalling  the  memories  of  the  Incarnate  Son  of  God  and 
His  Blessed  Mother.  But  to  every  deputation  which 
waited  on  him  he  repeated  his  courageous  words  of  advice 
and  exhortation.  The  days  of  trial  had  come  for  them  all  ; 
they  must  take  their  share  in  the  general  persecution,  and 
not  refuse  to  suffer  for  truth  and  for  Christ. 

On  June  6,  while  Rome  was  still  filled  with  the  evil 
atmosphere  left  behind  by  the  Voltairean  celebration,  Gen- 
eral Kanzler  and  the  veteran  soldiers  of  the  Pontifical 
Army  came  in  a  body  to  offer  their  homage  to  the  new 
Pope.  He  was  just  the  man  to  appreciate  their  senti- 


356  LIFE  OF  LEO  xn t. 

ments.  For  he  was  resolved  to  abate  not  one  jot  of  his 
sovereign  prerogatives  in  Rome,  nor  to  forego  the  hope  of 
seeing  Providence  restore  in  time  the  temporal  dominions 
indispensable  to  the  free  exercise  of  his  spiritual  power. 
This  was  the  hope  he  held  out  to  the  brave  men  who  had 
remained  true  to  the  Pontifical  flag.  "  To  you,"  he  said, 
in  concluding  his  stirring  address — "  to  you,  glorious  de- 
fenders of  right  and  justice,  we  shall  say  in  conclusion  : 
Persevere ;  remain  faithful  to  your  duties.  Let  no  act  in 
your  future  life  ever  stain  your  honored  career.  If  it  please 
God  to  shorten  the  days  of  trial  by  granting  us  happier 
times,  you  shall  be  found  at  your  post,  ready  to  protect  the 
sacred  interests  of  the  Church.  Should  it  turn  out  other- 
wise, you  will  have  the  consolation  of  having  shared  with 
us  our  ill-fortune  and  to  have  cast  your  lot  with  us." 

They  were  brave  words,  and  he  meant  them,  and  those 
who  heard  them  treasured  them  up  as  a  hope  and  as  a  re- 
ward. 

But  there  was  another  army  whose  soldiers  were  ever 
engaged  in  the  terrible  conflict,  and  who  could  not,  like 
General  Kanzler  and  his  men,  lay  by  their  arms  and  wait 
for  the  day  of  battle.  The  battle  for  priests  in  Rome,  in 
Italy,  on  every  point  of  the  European  Continent,  never 
ceases  to  rage,  and  no  true  man  can  leave  the  ranks  or 
skulk  away  from  the  perils  of  the  contest.  The  Picdmon- 
tese  government  had  wofully  thinned  the  battalions  of 
this  spiritual  militia  by  suppressing,  dispersing,  banishing 
the  Regular  Orders.  Rome  has,  ever  since  Christianity  has 
extended  its  influence  to  all  the  nations  of  the  earth,  been 
a  training-camp  for  the  priesthood,  for  the  apostleship  to 
be  exercised  in  all  countries.  This  the  Revolution  under- 
stood right  well  when  it  seized  upon  the  great  central 
monasteries,  novitiates,  and  schools  of  Rome.  This  was 
obliterating  the  very  springs  of  Christian  life,  learning,  and 
zeal. 

Pius  IX.,  though  deprived  of  the  revenues  of  the  Papal 
territories,  made  every  provision  his  limited  resources  and 
the  charities  of  the  faithful  enabled  him  to  carry  out  for 


ROMAN  CLERICAL  STUDENTS  VISIT  THE  POPE.      357 

educating  his  clergy,  for  recruiting  their  ranks,  and  for 
keeping  education  and  learning  up  to  the  highest  levels. 
His  successor  was  not  the  man  to  neglect  such  a  blessed 
and  necessary  work,  to  leave  it  incomplete.  He  threw  his 
whole  strength  into  enlarging  it  rather,  extending  the 
sphere  of  clerical  and  lay  education,  and  raising  the  stand- 
ard of  literary  and  scientific  excellence  far  above  that 
which  governed  the  secular  schools.  And  we  shall  see 
that  he  succeeded. 

VISIT  OF   STUDENTS. 

On  June  13  the  students  of  the  Seminario  Romano  and 
Seminario  Pio,  which  were  the  special  nurseries  of  the  Pon- 
tifical secular  clergy,  were  admitted  to  the  presence  of  Leo 
XIII.  Never  does  the  personal  character  of  the  Pontiff 
show  itself  in  such  an  amiable  light  as  when  he  is  surround- 
ed by  bands  of  seminarians  or  school-children.  The  memo- 
ry of  all  his  goodness  to  the  young  generations  he  reared 
in  Perugia  will  live  for  ever  in  the  hearts  and  on  the  lips 
of  the  people  of  Umbria. 

With  his  seminarians,  however,  the  Pope  loves  to  put  in 
his  speeches  and  conversation  all  the  graces  of  the  purest 
classic  Latin.  He  delights  in  encouraging  them  to  aim  at 
perfection  in  everything.  He  loves  to  set  ever  before  them 
the  high  ideal  of  the  priesthood,  prcecclsa  sacrorum  ministro- 
runi  dignitas — "  the  sublime  dignity  of  God's  ministers  "  ;  to 
exalt,  amid  the  present  abasement  of  Rome,  the  singular 
privileges  of  its  clergy— Romani  cleri  nomcn  ac  decus,  nostro- 
nun  tcmporum  conditio,  quibus  ingcns  errorum  ac  pestilens 
corruptionis  lues  undique  grassatur — "  and  the  sad  condition 
of  the  present  times,  when  error  and  corruption  like  a  twin 
stream  of  pestilential  waters  overspread  the  land." 

The  men  who  composed  the  Italian  government  were 
well  aware  to  what  extent  they  had  crippled  the  Church  in 
her  clergy  by  the  suppression  and  banishment  of  the  Mo- 
nastic Orders,  by  the  law  of  conscription  compelling  cleri- 
cal students  to  serve  their  term  in  the  army,  by  the  hope- 


358  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

less,  helpless  poverty  to  which  the  great  mass  of  priests 
were  condemned,  by  the  degrading  treatment  to  which 
both  bishops  and  priests  were  subjected  in  their  enforced 
relations  with  the  civil  authorities,  and  by  a  thousand-and- 
one  petty  means  at  the  use  of  those  in  power  to  make  life 
a  burden  to  an  odious  class  of  citizens. 

Still,  the  source  of  clerical  vocations  was  not  dried  up 
among  the  Italian  populations,  although  the  supply  was 
reduced  alarmingly.  The  government  resolved  to  go  to 
the  very  source  itself,  and  to  render  the  Christian  family 
giving  priests  to  the  Church  an  impossible  thing.  They 
would  seize  on  all  elementary  schools,  and  banish  from 
them  all  Christian  spirit,  all  Catholic  teaching,  the  very 
adored  names  of  Christ  and  of  God. 

And  they  did  it  in  Rome,  perhaps  to  honor  the  centen- 
nial celebration  in  honor  of  Voltaire.  But  they  did  it! 
On  June  26  the  Pope  addressed  to  Cardinal  Monaco  la 
Valletta,  his  vicar-general  in  Rome,  a  letter,  admirable  in 
every  sense,  on  religious  instruction  in  the  schools  of  that 
city.  The  Piedmontese  government  had  not  been  asham- 
ed, in  the  city  where  St.  Peter  and  St.  Paul  had  preached 
and  planted  the  faith,  not  only  to  forbid  in  all  schools 
under  their  control  the  giving  of  any  religious  instruction 
whatever,  but  they  had  banished  from  elementary  schools 
frequented  only  by  the  children  of  Catholic  parents  the 
Catholic  catechism. 

And  yet,  while  still  claiming  the  name  of  Catholics, 
these  men  allowed  all  other  denominations  to  have  their 
schools,  to  teach  their  catechism,  and  to  take  every  means 
to  entice  Catholic  children  to  attend  them.  It  was  not 
even  fair  play.  But  their  immediate  purpose  was  to  de- 
stroy the  Catholic  Church  and  religion.  The  rest  would 
easily  follow. 

Those  who  rejoiced  at  whatever  event  might  upset  the 
power  of  the   Papacy,  temporal  as  well   as  spiritual,  and 
who  even  now  clap  their  hands  at  seeing  the  revolution 
ists  destroying  every  distinctive  feature  of  Papal — that  is, 
of  Christian — Rome,  ought  to  remember  that  the  men  who 


BANISHING  KELIG1ON  FROM  PRIMARY  SCHOOLS.      359 

sought  to  banish  the  Catholic  catechism  from  the  schools 
of  the  Eternal  City,  while  permitting  non-Catholic  sects  the 
fullest  liberty  of  religious  instruction  and  proselytism,  are 
the  deadliest,  the  sworn,  the  professed  enemies  of  Chris- 
tianity itself,  of  all  religion  indeed. 

What  Paul  Bert  did  in  France,  in  open  pursuance  of  a 
design  he  never  attempted  to  conceal,  that  Doctor  Baccelli, 
appointed  Minister  of  Public  Instruction  in  1880,  openly 
avowed  as  his  purpose  and  carried  out  faithfully.  He  de- 
clared that  from  all  schools  in  Italy  should  be  systemati- 
cally, carefully  excluded  all  religious  teaching,  even  that  of 
the  simplest  Theism. 

Is  it  right,  is  it  honorable,  is  it  in  accordance  with 
Christian  principle  to  be,  even  indirectly,  the  allies  and 
auxiliaries  of  such  men  in  dechristianizing  Italy?  Is  it 
consistency  to  have  the  Bible — the  Bible  in  the  Italian 
tongue,  and  unauthorized  by  the  Pope  or  the  Italian  bish- 
ops— ranked  with  the  most  blasphemous  anti-Christian 
literature,  and  with  the  obscene  and  utterly  abominable 
books  and  pamphlets,  and  flying  illustrated  sheets,  which 
are  studiously  circulated  in  Italy  to  corrupt  the  hearts,  the 
minds,  the  morals  of  the  people? 

Surely,  where  the  means  employed  by  the  present  mas- 
ters of  Italy  and  of  the  Eternal  City  to  blot  out  the  no- 
tion of  God,  and  to  make  the  very  name  of  Christ  our 
Lord  odious  and  ridiculous,  are  such  as  Beelzebub  and 
Belial  would  avow,  men  and  women  who  have  sincerely  at 
heart  the  triumph  of  Gospel  truth  and  morality  should  ask 
themselves  in  what  company  they  are.  It  is  not  likely 
that  demons  would  conspire  to  overthrow  the  empire  of 
falsehood  and  vice.  And  where  they  and  their  visible 
agents  are  found  arrayed  against  a  venerable  and  widely- 
spread  creed  and  order  of  things,  the  presumption  is  that 
that  creed  and  that  order  are  from  God. 

From  the  very  beginning  of  his  Pontificate  Leo  XIII. 
set  his  heart  upon  counteracting,  by  every  agency  which 
he  could  command,  the  effects  of  the  irreligious  and  immo- 
ral education  given,  of  set  purpose,  to  the  children  of  Ro- 


360  UPE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

man  parents  and  the  youth  of  the  great  public  schools  ever 
since  1870.  Cardinal  Monaco  la  Valletta  gave  the  Pope 
effectual  aid  in  this;  and  later,  when  Cardinal  Parocchi, 
then  Archbishop  of  Bologna,  became  cardinal  vicar,  he 
threw  into  the  work  of  organizing  a  thorough  system  of 
secular  and  religious  instruction  in  the  primary  schools  of 
Rome  all  his  intelligent  zeal,  experience,  and  characteris- 
tic energy.  But,  as  the  government  had  taken  forcible  pos- 
session of  all  primary  and  intermediate  secular  schools  ex- 
isting at  the  time  of  the  occupation  of  Rome,  the  Pope  had 
to  create  out  of  his  own  crippled  resources  a  system  of 
schools  able  to  counteract  the  influence  of  the  others. 

This  was  one  great  object  of  solicitude.     We  shall  sec 
further  on  what  Leo  XIII.  effected  in  this  direction. 


CHAPTER  XXII. 

DIFFICULTIES — PILGRIMS — SOLICITUDE    FOR    FRANCE    AND 
GERMANY — ENCYCLICAL  ON   SOCIALISM. 

[1878-1879.] 

E  have  not  enumerated  all  the  difficulties  which 
from  the  outset  beset  the  path  of  Leo  XIII., 
nor  have  we  described  their  magnitude.  To  their  solution 
the  aged  Pope  brought  a  clear  head,  a  firm  purpose,  an 
indomitable  courage,  a  rare  knowledge  of  men  and  of  the 
age  in  which  he  lived,  consummate  prudence  and  tact  in 
dealing  with  sovereigns  and  statesmen  as  well  as  with 
churchmen  and  laymen  of  every  class.  Add  to  all  these 
qualities  an  unbounded  confidence  in  the  God  whose  cause 
was  entrusted  to  him,  and  the  simple  faith,  the  living,  ardent 
piety  of  the  lowliest  of  Christians,  refreshing  and  strength- 
ening his  soul  in  his  gigantic  labors. 

Formidable  as  were  the  obstacles  opposed  to  the  fulfil- 
ment of  his  mission  in  Germany,  France,  and  Belgium,  as 
well  as  in  Russia  and  the  Turkish  Empire,  there  was  some 
hope  of  removing  them  by  degrees.  But  in  Italy  and  in 
Rome  itself  no  diplomatic  skill,  no  concessions,  compro- 
mises, or  transactions,  could  avail  to  conciliate  or  change  the 
fell  spirit  of  the  revolutionary  and  anti-Christian  government, 
which,  under  the  name  of  a  monarchy,  moved  as  steadily, 
as  scientifically,  as  fatally  onward  to  the  annihilation  of  the 
Church  and  the  Papacy  as  a  locomotive  at  full  speed  on  a 
perfectly  safe  road,  and  directed  by  a  skilled  and  expe- 
rienced hand,  moves  on  toward  its  goal,  crushing  beneath 
its  iron  wheels  the  puny  obstacles  the  hand  of  a  child 
would  oppose  to  its  progress. 

We  have  seen,  stripped  of  all  disguises  and  fair  names, 
the  Voltairean,  the  anti-Christian  power  which  is  at  present 

361 


362  LIFE  OF  LLO  XIII. 

master  of  Rome,  and  presides  in  the  councils  of  the  muni- 
cipality as  it  does  in  those  of  the  government. 

Outwardly,  to  all  human  seeming,  judging  things  from 
the  standpoint  of  mere  human  wisdom  and  experience,  and 
apart  from  some  superhuman  intervention  of  Providence,  in 
May,  1878,  there  appeared  not  one  ray  of  hope  for  the 
Papacy,  for  the  preservation  of  the  Church  and  of  the  Ca- 
tholic religion  in  Italy,  as  against  the  irresistible  domination 
of  the  established  civil  power  and  the  fatal  advance  of  the 
radical  and  irreligious  spirit. 

The  Italian  prime  minister  could  at  any  moment  he 
chose  order  a  company  of  chasseurs  to  occupy  the  Vatican, 
and  to  put  Leo  XIII.  and  his  secretary,  with  their  brevia- 
ries and  travelling-suits,  into  a  hackney  coach,  as  Napoleon 
I.  ordered  the  seventh  Pius,  and  have  them  conveyed  to  the 
fortress  of  Fenestrelle  or  across  the  frontier.  And  not  a 
European  or  American  power  would  have  sent  a  fleet  or  an 
army  to  prevent  the  outrage. 

Thus  it  was  in  1878. 

We  see  how  bravely  the  Pope  faces  his  enemies  and  pre- 
pares to  solve  every  difficulty,  to  ward  off  every  danger, 
while  neglecting  not  one  detail  of  his  vast  administration, 
or  the  urging  forward  of  a  single  one  of  the  mighty  mis- 
sionary enterprises  begun  or  pursued  under  his  direction  in 
every  known  land. 

Follow  him  in  a  few  of  the  cares  and  labors,  the  joys 
and  consolations  also,  which  continue  to  fill  up  his  days  as 
the  summer  of  1878  passes  into  autumn. 

The  government  had  devised  a  plan  for  "  renovating" 
and  "  reforming"  the  external  aspect  of  Rome  within  and 
without  the  circuit  of  the  ancient  walls.  It  was  intendrd. 
under  the  pretext  of  laying  out  new  streets,  of  widening 
the  old,  and  of  providing  room  for  the  increasing  popula- 
tion, to  blot  out  all  the  features  of  the  mediaeval  and  Papal 
city;  in  a  word,  all  the  characters  of  the  Christian  Rome, 
the  capital  of  the  Christian  world.  The  uninhabited  quar- 
ter on  the  lisquiline  was  laid  out  and  united  to  the  Quirinal 
by  avenues  intended  to  rival  those  of  Paris  or  Berlin  or 


PILGRIMS  FROM  GERMANY.  363 

Vienna — as  if  the  torrid  climate  of  Rome  in  summer  was 
compatible  with  broad,  glaring,  sunburnt,  and  wind-swept 
thoroughfares !  No  provision  for  Catholic  worship  was 
made  in  this  new  quarter.  Indeed,  it  was  openly  said  in 
official  quarters  that  none  would  be  made  by  the  govern- 
ment or  the  city  authorities.  The  municipal  council,  like 
the  cabinet  and  the  legislature,  was  now  under  the  control 
of  the  revolutionary  clubs. 

But  from  the  Vatican  the  Holy  Father  watched  the 
gradual  destruction  of  the  Rome  of  the  Popes  and  the 
rapid  increase  of  the  city  population.  He  could  not  leave 
the  new  comers  devoid  of  all  spiritual  succor  and  comfort, 
and  on  August  11,  calling  before  him  the  chapter  and 
clergy  of  St.  Mary  Major,  he  entrusted  to  their  priestly 
zeal  and  generosity  the  care  of  this  new  district. 

But  with  the  summer  also  came  bands  of  pilgrims  from 
distant  lands — men  who  felt  the  need  of  renewing  at  the 
feet  of  Christ's  Vicar  their  pledges  of  fidelity  to  the  law 
which  it  was  sought  to  banish  from  the  face  of  the  earth, 
and  to  return  home,  comforted  and  strengthened  by  his 
blessing,  to  continue  the  battle  with  scepticism,  with  open 
and  professed  unbelief,  and  with  the  terrible  secret  associa- 
tions which  pushed  on  their  warfare  on  religion  and  all 
authority. 

The  German  Catholics,  so  fearfully  tried  by  the  Kultur- 
kampf,  or  by  what  Prince  Bismarck  later  called  "the  battle 
with  the  Church,"  sent  a  noble  band  of  representative  men 
to  enter  their  protest  against  the  Voltairean  Congress. 
They  were  presented  to  the  Pope  on  May  23,  and  the 
words  of  filial  love,  reverence,  and  sympathy  uttered  by 
them  to  the  Common  Parent,  were  a  sweet  consolation 
amid  the  hideous  atheistic  revelry  covered  by  the  sanction 
of  the  new  masters  of  Rome.  And  he  in  return,  whose 
heart  went  out  to  suffering  Germany,  found  glowing  words 
of  praise  and  admiration  for  the  pilgrims  and  their  absent 
brethren. 

And  here,  as  if  pausing  between  two  of  these  glorious 
pilgrim  receptions  at  the  Vatican,  we  come  upon  a  letter 


364  LIIfE  °F  LEO 

addressed  on  July  24  to  the  mayor  and  municipality  of 
Cork,  in  answer  to  their  address  of  congratulation  and 
filial  homage  sent  to  the  Holy  Father  on  the  preceding 
iithof  March.  Their  homage  was  most  grateful  to  him, 
he  says.  "  It  clearly  showed  us  the  reverence  and  filial 
piety  you  entertain  toward  us,  which  unite  your  own  hearts 
together  and  do  not  fear  to  express  themselves  publicly. 
It  also  commended  to  us  the  religious  sense  and  wisdom  of 
your  illustrious  city,  which  found  in  you  sons  worthy  of 
being  entrusted  with  the  administration  of  its  affairs.  To 
you  therefore,  beloved  sons,  we  gladly  express  in  this  letter 
our  gratitude  and  affection  ;  and,  ready  as  we  are  ever  to 
give  you  every  proof  we  can  of  our  fatherly  love,  we  pray 
God  from  our  heart  to  be  evermore  your  protector  and 
helper,  and  so  to  inspire  your  counsels  that  your  labors 
may  procure  His  glory  as  well  as  the  welfare  and  pros- 
perity of  your  fellow-citizens." 

Simple,  sincere,  and  loving  words,  which  Cork  will  trea- 
sure up  in  her  records,  and  which  found  their  echo  in  Ire- 
land as  if  addressed  to  her  long  suffering  millions,  promis- 
ing them  that  "God  would  also  be  their  protector  and 
helper,"  and  the  Pontiff  who  had  succeeded  to  Gregory 
XV.  and  Urban  VIII.,  after  an  interval  of  more  than  two 
centuries,  "  would  be  ever  ready  to  give  them  in  their  need 
every  possible  proof  of  his  fatherly  love  and  care." 

But  here  comes  Spain  in  the  beginning  of  autumn  to 
have  the  representatives  of  all  her  provinces  present  in 
Rome  and  at  the  feet  of  the  Sovereign  Pontiff  on  the 
feast  of  St.  Teresa,  October  15.  The  steamer  Santiago  had 
been  retained  to  take  the  fifteen  hundred  Spanish  pilgrims 
from  Barcelona  to  Civita  Vecchia,  so  as  to  avoid  all  delays 
and  troubles  on  the  road.  The  Bishop  of  Huesca  was  at 
the  head  of  these  sons  of  Catholic  Spain,  and  everybody 
had  reason  to  feel  that  nothing  would  happen  to  mar  the 
expectation  of  the  pilgrims. 

But  they  had  not  taken  into  account  the  spirit  which 
now  ruled  the  political  affairs  of  Italy.  Pilgrimages  of 
every  kind  were  the  special  abomination  of  the  men  \vlx> 


CRUEL   TREATMENT  OF  SPANISH  PILGRIMS.         365 

wished  the  Pope  at  the  antipodes,  and  who  had  intended 
in  1848-49,  during  the  siege  of  Rome,  to  blow  up  St. 
Peter's  and  the  Vatican.  Pilgrimages  the  anti-clerical  mas- 
ters of  Rome  considered  to  be  a  kind  of  foreign  invasion. 
They  kept  up  the  idea  of  the  Pope-King.  Had  they  not 
killed  the  "  King,"  and  did  they  not  hope  soon  to  ex- 
tinguish the  "  Pope,"  and  have  an  Italy  and  a  Rome 
entirely  after  their  own  heart  ? 

The  authorities  were  fearful  for  the  public  health  if 
such  a  crowd  of  Spaniards  were  landed  all  at  once  upon  the 
Italian  shore ;  they  kept  the  Santiago  at  quarantine  for 
four  entire  days  in  the  bay  of  Civita  Vecchia,  although  no 
contagious  disease  reigned  either  in  Barcelona  or  in  any 
part  of  Spain.  It  was  in  vain  that  they  demanded  to  be 
in  Rome  before  the  I5th.  The  authorities  were  fully  de- 
termined that  in  Rome  they  should  not  be  on  that  day. 
They  hoped  that  the  Spaniards  would  profit  by  the  lesson, 
and  that  the  Bishop  of  Huesca  would  tell  his  brother- 
bishops  that  no  more  Spanish  pilgrimages  would  be  wel- 
come in  the  Rome  in  which  they  had  been  celebrating  the 
apotheosis  of  Voltaire. 

Not  before  the  i/th,  two  days  after  the  feast,  were  the 
Spaniards  able  to  be  presented  to  Leo  XIII.  That  he  suf- 
fered keenly  at  seeing  such  an  indignity  put  upon  hundreds 
of  the  best  men  of  Spain,  and  led  by  one  of  her  noblest 
bishops,  we  may  well  imagine.  It  convinced  the  pilgrims, 
if  other  proofs  were  absent,  of  the  untenable  position  of 
the  Supreme  Pastor  of  the  Catholic  world,  living  in  his 
own  episcopal  city  under  the  domination  of  a  power  all  the 
more  relentlessly  hostile  and  anti-Catholic  that  both  king 
and  queen  persisted  in  calling  themselves  Catholics ! 

It  was  short-sighted  policy  on  the  part  of  the  Pied- 
montese  and  their  subordinates.  For  we  Catholics  from 
every  land,  thronging  to  the  Tombs  of  the  Holy  Apostles 
and  to  the  home  of  our  Common  Father,  bear  back  with  us 
to  our  own  land  the  memory  of  the  humiliation  he  endures, 
of  the  restraints  put  upon  his  liberty,  of  the  rudeness  and 
insults  offered  to  ourselves ;  and  we  resolve  that  the  day 


366  1.1FK  OF  LEO  XIII. 

shall  come  when  the  Pope  shall  be  again  sovereign  of 
Rome. 

T-hat  is  a  hope  and  a  vow  registered  in  many  a  home  of 
many  a  land  as  well  as  Spain,  and  the  numbers  of  those 
who  register  these  vows  increase  with  each  passing  year. 
In  Germany,  hostile  as  it  was  in  May,  1878,  the  hope  and 
the  vows  of  its  returned  pilgrims  have  been  growing  like 
seed  in  a  blessed  soil,  till  we  see  in  May,  1886,  what  a 
formidable  crop  of  sympathy  for  the  Pontiff,  indignation 
against  the  destroyers  of  Rome,  and  threatening  hostility 
toward  its  Voltairean  government  have  sprung  up  all  of  a 
sudden  to  face  usurpers  and  evil-doers. 

And  in  Spain,  and  wherever  the  Spanish  language  is 
spoken,  how  ready  the  Spanish  heart  would  be  to  catch  fire 
and  espouse  the  cause  of  the  Pontiff  whenever  a  brave 
leader  and  God's  golden  opportunity  appeared !  Even  in 
our  own  great  republic  will  not  the  quick  American  sense, 
and  the  instinctive  love  of  justice,  and  the  passion  for  free- 
dom of  conscience  soon  be  made  to  perceive  that  the  clear- 
est religious  rights  of  our  millions  of  Catholics,  the  dearest 
interests  of  civilization  among  the  heathen,  demand  that 
the  Pope,  the  great  international  peace-making  power  of 
the  world,  should  be  sovereign  in  the  city  where  he  has 
reigned  for  eleven  hundred  years  ? 

All  these  pilgrims  brought  with  them,  together  with 
their  filial  reverence  and  affection,  their  offerings  of  Peter's 
pence,  the  contributions  of  all  the  members  of  Christ's 
great  family  toward  the  support  of  His  Vicar,  now  de- 
spoiled of  his  patrimony.  They  were  timely  and  much- 
needed  offerings  these,  for  in  Italy  alone  there  were  many 
thousands  of  priests,  monks,  and  nuns  stripped  of  their 
lawful  property  by  the  usurping  government,  and  left  des- 
titute of  all  earthly  means  of  adequate  sustenance. 

The  month  of  February,  1879,  concluding  the  first  year 
of  Leo  XIII.'s  Pontificate,  witnessed  in  Rome  a  very  mo- 
mentous gathering.  It  was  a  congress  of  Catholic  writers 
and  journalists,  who  had  come,  representative  toilers  of  the 
pen,  from  all  countries  to  take  advice  from  the  Holy  Fa- 


A  CONGRESS  OF  CATHOLIC  WRITERS.  367 

ther  on  the  line  of  conduct  to  be  followed  by  the  Catholic 
press  in  treating  of  politico-religious  questions.  No  as- 
semblage, apart  from  an  oecumenical  council,  could  wield 
a  greater  influence  over  the  course  of  public  opinion,  the 
direction  of  all  intellectual  currents,  and  the  peace  and 
prosperity  of  the  Christian  commonwealth  than  such  a 
gathering. 

Leo  XIII.  knew  it,  and  sad  experience  had  taught  the 
truth  of  it  to  the  men  who  gathered  to  hear  Leo  XIII.  on 
February  22,  1879.  ^n  France  and  in  Spain,  as  is  well 
known,  political  opinion  among  Catholfcs  had  divided  the 
very  best  and  most  influential  into  opposite  and  bitterly 
hostile  camps.  In  France  this  division  had  been  still  more 
complicated  by  theological  and  philosophical  discussions. 
People  in  such  cases,  when  they  are  conscientious  and  ar- 
dent— and  they  were  so  on  both  sides  of  the  Pyrenees — 
would  naturally  wish  to  have  Rome  on  their  side.  Men 
who  defended  religion  and  the  dearest  interests  of  the 
Church  against  rampant  Caesarism,  or  no  less  rampant 
liberalism  and  demagoguism,  would  too  often  take  on 
themselves  to  dictate  to  priests,  bishops,  and  Pope  the  line 
of  conduct  they  ought  to  pursue  even  in  ecclesiastical  mat- 
ters, but  more  especially  in  the  domain  of  politics.  The 
peculiar  circumstances  of  the  Holy  See,  the  opportune- 
ness or  the  inopportuneness  of  making  concessions  to  the 
foreign  invaders  who  had  come  from  the  foot  of  the  Alps 
in  time  of  peace  to  attack  a  defenceless  and  almost  un- 
armed power  hitherto  held  sacred  and  inviolable  by  Chris- 
tendom— all  these  were  made  the  continual  subject  of  news- 
paper discussion,  greatly  to  the  injury  of  religion,  to  the 
scandal  of  the  people,  and  to  the  detriment  of  the  Papacy, 
whose  interests  it  was  sought  to  advance. 

On  the  question  whether  Italian  citizens  should  throw 
themselves  into  the  new  current  of  political  life,  and  there- 
by recognize  the  legitimacy  of  the  existing  government,  the 
validity  of  the  spoliations  and  suppressions  accomplished  in 
Rome  and  throughout  the  Peninsula,  lend  an  indirect  sanc- 
tion to  the  sacrilegious  restrictions  and  violations  of  the 


368  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

Papal  and  episcopal  spiritual  jurisdiction  daily  and  hourly 
taking  place  even  in  the  Eternal  City  itself —these  were  sub- 
jects which  set  men's  hearts  and  heads  aflame,  and  made 
their  pens  write  words  that  burned  like  fire.  Who  could 
control  these  mighty  forces  of  the  press?  Who  but  the 
Vicar  of  Christ  ? 

When  this  select  body,  representing  the  great  host  of 
the  soldiers  of  Catholic  truth,  stood  before  him  on  that  same 
22d  of  February,  he  had  but  tender  words  of  fatherly  gra- 
titude and  blessing  for  them.  What  had  he  been  himself 
in  Perugia,  during  the  thirty-two  long  years  of  intellectual 
combat  with  error  and  wrong,  but  a  soldier  of  the  truth, 
a  toiler  of  the  pen  ?  And  so  his  whole  heart  went  out 
also  to  those  champions  of  God  and  his  Church. 

Those  who  insisted  on  coming  to  terms  with  the  Revo- 
lution received,  however,  a  stern  rebuke:  they  "  must  not 
presume  to  decide  in  their  own  name  and  by  their  own 
light  public  controversies  of  the  highest  importance,  bear- 
ing on  the  circumstances  of  the  Apostolic  See,  nor  seem  to 
have  opinions  in  opposition  to  what  is  required  by  the  dig- 
nity and  liberty  of  the  Roman  Pontiff." 

But  here  in  the  following  words  speaks  the  heart  of  the 
Pontiff : 

"  Beloved  sons,  who  are  supremely  devoted  to  the  Apos- 
tolic See,  and  show  yourselves  so  ready  to  sustain  its  liberty 
and  its  honor,  be  also  courageous  and  unanimous  in  em- 
ploying both  voice  and  pen  in  upholding  the  necessity  of  the 
temporal  sovereignty  for  the  free  exercise  of  our  supreme 
authority.  With  the  records  of  history  in  your  hand,  show 
that  there  is  no  power  on  earth  which  can  pretend  to  be 
superior  or  equal  to  it  in  the  legitimacy  of  the  right  and 
title  from  which  it  sprang.  If  any  one,  in  order  to  draw  on 
you  the  hatred  of  the  multitude,  should  go  about  repeat 
ing  that  this  temporal  sovereignty  is  incompatible  with  the 
welfare  of  Italy  and  the  prosperity  of  states,  you,  on  tin- 
other  hand,  should  rejoin  that  the  safety  and  the  prosperity 
of  nations  has  nothing  to  fear  from  the  sovereignty  of 
the  Popes  and  from  the  freedom  of  the  Church.  .  .  .  Add 


369 


37O  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

this,  which  all  know,  that  the  Roman  Pontiffs  at  all  times 
bestowed  the  greatest  pains  in  fostering  the  letters  and 
sciences,  that  they  were  the  generous  protectors  of  the  fine 
arts,  and  that  with  a  just  and  paternal  sway  they  made 
their  people  happy.  Proclaim,  in  fine,  to  the  world  that 
the  public  affairs  of  Italy  will  never  prosper  nor  enjoy  per- 
manent tranquillity  until  provision  has  been  made,  in  accor- 
dance with  all  sorts  of  reasons,  for  the  dignity  of  the  Ro- 
man See  and  the  liberty  of  the  Sovereign  Pontiff." 

In  the  beginning  (Qth)  of  September  the  Pope  issued  a 
new  code  of  regulations  for  the  use  of  the  Vatican  Library. 
Already  he  felt  the  necessity  of  stimulating  Italian  scholars 
to  explore  the  rich  mine  of  historical  lore  laid  up  in  Rome, 
for  so  many  centuries  the  head  of  the  Christian,  as  it  had 
long  before  been  that  of  the  pagan,  world.  In  spite  of  the 
literary  treasures  taken  away  from  time  to  time  by  those 
who  had  possession  of  the  Eternal  City,  there  still  .remained 
enough  behind  to  tempt  the  ambition  of  the  student.  In  the 
Vatican  particularly,  where  are  the  archives  of  the  Chris- 
tian Church,  the  records  of  Christianity  itself,  it  is  im- 
portant that  those  who  would  know  what  the  Church  did 
in  the  world  should  seek  authentic  information  at  its  very 
source. 

That  same  month  of  September,  1878,  had  witnessed 
the  establishment  of  a  Council  of  Cardinals,  whose  special 
labor  should  be  to  select  fit  persons  to  fill  the  episcopal  sees 
of  Italy.  The  importance  of  this  new  act  of  Leo  XIII.  will 
-at  once  strike  all  readers  acquainted  with  the  political  and 
religious  condition  of  the  Peninsula.  At  any  rate,  the  Pope, 
Avho,  from  his  lofty  seat  in  Perugia,  had  watched  the  strug- 
gles of  the  Italian  hierarchy  with  the  Piedmontese  revo- 
lutionists, and  the  desperate  measures  resorted  to  by  the 
latter  to  bend  the  bishops  to  their  own  will,  now  resolved 
that  every  precaution  which  the  divine  wisdom  of  the 
Church  can  suggest  should  be  employed  to  fill  the  vacant 
sees  of  Italy  with  none  but  the  best  men — men  of  God,  men 
of  superior  learning  and  superior  virtue,  men  of  inflexible 
principles  and  indomitable  courage.  Leo  XIII.  wanted  to 


LETTER  TO  THE  ARCHBISHOP  OF  COLOGNE,        371 

do  all  a  Pope  could  do  to  make  the  hierarchy  of  Italy  the 
light  of  the  world. 

Later,  in  November  (21),  the  venerable  Archbishop  Gas- 
taldi,  of  Turin,  who  is  still  so  gratefully  and  affectionately 
remembered  by  the  Catholics  of  Great  Britain  and  Ireland, 
received  from  the  Holy  Father  a  warm  letter  of  thanks  and 
praise  for  the  acts  of  his  Diocesan  Synod. 

The  same  month  witnessed  the  creation  of  the  new  dio- 
cese of  Leeds  in  England. 

The  trials  of  German  Catholics,  particularly  in  Prussia, 
were  still  bitter  in  the  extreme.  The  Archbishop  of  Cologne 
had  written  to  the  Holy  Father,  giving  an  account  of  the 
sufferings  endured,  but  rehearsing  the  glorious  tale  of  the 
people's  constancy  to  their  baptismal  faith,  of  the  priests' 
fidelity  to  their  flocks  and  obedience  to  their  bishops,  of  the 
perfect  union  of  hearts  and  minds  which  reigned  among  the 
bishops  themselves,  and  of  their  devoted  attachment  to  the 
Vicar  of  Christ. 

On  December  24  the  Pope  answered  the  archbishop  in 
one  of  those  thrilling  letters  which  sound  like  the  address  of 
a  commander-in-chief  to  troops  in  battle  array  and  facing 
the  enemy.  Bishops,  priests,  and  people  get  their  meed  of 
praise.  Glancing  at  the  efforts  made  all  through  Germany 
by  the  Occult  Force  to  inculcate  errors  the  most  pernicious 
to  religion  and  society,  and  ever  conscious  that  governments 
can  have  no  efficient  aid  against  this  ubiquitous  and  destruc- 
tive enemy  save  from  the  Church,  he  informs  the  archbishop 
that  he  has  raised  his  voice  to  the  rulers  of  Germany  to  be 
at  peace  with  the  Church  instead  of  combating  and  crippling 
her.  While  endeavoring  to  conduct  to  a  successful  termi- 
nation the  efforts  made  toward  a  lasting  peace  between 
Prussia  and  her  Catholic  subjects,  he  will  continue  to  do  the 
work  which  will,  in  the  end,  be  most  advantageous  to  the 
state,  by  denouncing  error,  exposing  the  magnitude  and  the 
causes  of  social  disorders,  and  by  pointing  out  the  remedy. 

The  Pope  knew  that  every  line  of  his  letter  would  be 
eagerly  and  attentively  read  and  studied  by  the  Imperial 
government,  by  Prince  Bismarck  above  all.  He  calculated, 


372  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

not  without  reason,  on  the  effects  which  his  own  conserva- 
tive teaching,  which  is  that  of  the  Church,  of  Christianity 
itself,  would  have  on  minds  that  felt  the  need  of  such  prin- 
ciples, and  must  end  by  respecting  the  Church  which  up- 
holds and  practices  them. 

Then  comes  a  vivid  picture  of  what  that  Church  has  to 
endure  at  the  hands  of  the  Prussian  and  Imperial  authori- 
ties. 

Evidently  the  mind  of  Leo  XIII.  was  then  full  of  the 
encyclical  which  he  was  preparing  to  issue  on  Socialism,  the 
one  topic  which,  before  all  others,  was  at  that  moment  sure 
to  obtain  the  undivided  attention  of  both  the  Emperor 
William  and  his  prime  minister.  It  was  published  on 
December  28 :  * 

"  As  the  very  nature  of  our  apostolic  charge  required, 
we  did  not  fail  to  point  out  to  you  from  the  beginning  of 
our  Pontificate,  in  an  encyclical  letter,  that  mortal  poison 
which  circulates  in  the  vital  organs  of  human  society  and 
reduces  it  to  the  most  extreme  danger.  At  the  same  time 
we  explained  to  you  what  were  the  most  efficacious  reme- 
dies by  the  application  of  which  society  may  be  restored 
to  health  and  the  grave  perils  which  threaten  it  may  be 
averted. 

"  But'  since  then  the  evils  which  we  deplored  have  so 
rapidly  developed  that  we  are  again  obliged  to  address 
ourselves  to  you.  It  is  as  if  the  prophet  thundered  in  our 
ears :  Cry  out,  cease  not,  lift  up  thy  voice  like  a  trumpet  !  f 

"  You  will  easily  understand,  Venerable  Brothers,  that 
we  are  speaking  of  that  class  of  men  who,  under  various 
and  strange  names,  are  known  as  Socialists,  Communists,  or 
Nihilists,  and  who,  spread  over  the  globe  and  bound  to- 
gether closely  by  a  criminal  bond,  no  longer  seek  the 
friendly  shelter  of  their  secret  conventicles,  but  come  forth 
boldly  into  the  daylight,  and  seek  to  carry  out  their  long- 
cherished  purpose  of  subverting  civil  society  to  its  foun- 
dations. 

*  Encyclical  Quod  Apostolici  mtineris,  Dec.  28,  1878. 
f  Isaias  Iviii.  i. 


ENCYCLICAL   ON  SOCIALISM.  373 

"  These  are  the  men  who,  as  the  word  of  God  attests, 
defile  the  flesh,  and  despise  dominion,  and  blaspheme  majesty.* 
They  spare  nothing,  leave  nothing  untouched  of  all  that 
divine  and  human  laws  have  devised  in  their  wisdom 
for  the  protection  and  adornment  of  life.  The  highest 
powers,  to  which,  as  the  Apostle  teaches,  every  living  soul 
should  be  subject,  and  which  hold  of  God  the  right  to  com- 
mand, they  refuse  to  obey,  and  preach  a  perfect  equality 
of  all  men,  both  with  regard  to  their  rights  and  to  their 
duties. 

"  They  profane  the  natural  union  of  husband  and  wife, 
which  even  barbarous  tribes  hold  to  be  sacred ;  and  as  to 
the  marriage  bond,  which  is  the  chief  foundation  of  domes- 
tic society,  they  either  weaken  it  or  make  of  it  the  play- 
thing of  passion. 

"  Then,  carried  away  by  the  greed  of  actual  wealth, 
which  is  the  root  of  all  evils,  which  some  coveting  have  erred 
from  the  faith,  f  they  deny  the  right  to  hold  property  sanc- 
tioned by  the  law  of  nature  ;  and  by  a  savage  audacity, 
under  the  pretext  of  providing  for  the  needs  and  desires  of 
all  mankind,  they  aim  at  dispossessing  people  of  all  that 
they  have  lawfully  inherited,  or  gained  by  their  talents  or 
industry,  or  hoarded  from  their  savings.  These  monstrous 
opinions  they  proclaim  in  their  meetings,  teach  in  their 
pamphlets,  and  spread  through  a  host  of  organs  in  the 
press.  From  all  these  lessons  such  hatred  sprang  among 
the  seditious  crowd  against  the  majesty  and  authority  of 
rulers  that  criminal  traitors,  impatient  of  all  control,  have 
several  times  within  a  brief  interval  made  impious  attempts 
on  the  lives  of  heads  of  states."  \ 

The  Pope  then  gives  the  history  of  modern  Socialistic 
error,  tracing  it  back  to  the  sixteenth  century,  when  "  a 
bitter  war  was  declared  against  the  Catholic  faith,  gaining 
strength  continually  down  to  the  present  time,  and  having 
for  its  aim  to  set  aside  all  revealed  truth,  all  the  superna- 
tural order ;  to  pave  the  way  to  reason  with  its  discoveries, 

*  Jude  8.  f  i  Timothy  vi.  TO.  \  "  Acta,"  vol.  i.  pp.  170-173. 


374  LIFE  OF  LEO  XI1L 

or  its  dreams  rather.  This  error,  wrongly  taking  its  name 
from  reason,  flatters  and  stimulates  man's  natural  desire  of 
lifting  himself  above  others,  gives  a  free  rein  to  all  the  pas- 
sions, and  thus  naturally  found  adepts  in  most  men,  and 
spread  among  the  social  classes. 

"  Hence,  an  impious  thing  never  dreamed  of  even  by 
the  old  pagans,  states  were  founded  without  any  regard  to 
God  or  to  the  order  by  Him  established.  It  was  given  as 
a  dictate  of  truth  that  public  authority  derives  from  God 
neither  its  origin,  nor  its  majesty,  nor  its  power  to  com- 
mand, all  that  coming,  on  the  contrary,  from  the  multi- 
tude ;  and  that  the  people,  deeming  themselves  free  from 
all  divine  sanctions,  consented  only  to  be  ruled  by  such 
laws  as  they  chose  to  enact. 

"  The  supernatural  truths  of  the  Christian  faith,  as  a 
thing  repugnant  to  reason,  were  denied  and  rejected,  while 
the  very  Author  and  Redeemer  of  the  human  race  was 
eliminated  from  the  matters  of  study  in  the  universities, 
colleges,  and  academies,  and  was  finally  banished  by  de- 
grees from  the  whole  intercourse  of  life. 

"  In  fine,  the  rewards  and  punishments  of  the  life  to 
come  were  put  out  of  mind  and  sight,  and  the  ardent 
wishes  of  the  human  breast  for  happiness  were  limited  to 
the  narrow  compass  of  the  present  life. 

"  By  spreading  such  doctrines  far  and  wide,  such  an  un- 
bridled licentiousness  of  thought  and  action  was  begotten 
everywhere  that  it  is  no  wonder  if  men  of  the  lower  classes, 
disgusted  with  their  poverty-stricken  homes  and  their  dis- 
mal workshop,  are  filled  with  an  inordinate  desire  to  rush 
upon  the  homes  and  fortunes  of  the  wealthy ;  no  wonder  is 
it  that  tranquillity  is  banished  from  all  private  and  public 
life,  and  that  the  human  race  seems  hurried  onward  to  its 
ruin." 

In  his  first  great  doctrinal  letter  or  encyclical  Leo 
XIII.  had  spoken  of  certain  doctrines,  sedulously  and 
widely  inculcated  in  our  day,  which  poisoned  men's  minds, 
inflamed  their  worst  passions,  and  created  ever-increasing 
disorder  and  convulsions  in  the  body  politic  wherever  they 


DESCRIPTION  AND  HISTORY  OF  SOCIALISM.         375 

were  allowed  to  prevail.  These  doctrines  and  their  effects 
were  happily  compared  to  some  such  poison  as  strychnine, 
which  attacks  the  nervous  centres  and  causes  fearful  spasms 
and  convulsions. 

By  this  poison  he  meant  Socialistic  error ;  and  this  it  is 
which  the  Pope  makes  the  subject  of  this  most  important 
letter. 

Two  countries  in  particular  were,  at  the  close  of  1878,  a 
prey  to  Socialism — France  and  Germany.  In  the  former 
Socialism  was  openly  in  close  alliance  with  the  secret  socie- 
ties. The  latter  were  now  at  the  head  of  the  government, 
counted  among  their  adepts  the  majority  in  both  houses  of 
the  French  legislature,  and  were  slowly  but  surely  advanc- 
ing toward  the  realization  of  their  ideal — a  Socialistic  re- 
public without  any  form  of  religious  worship  and  totally 
adverse  to  the  influence  of  religion,  its  ministers  and  pro- 
fessors, on  any  department  or  function  of  the  state  or  in 
any  walk  of  public  life. 

The  Communists  and  Anarchists,  who  were  the  most 
"advanced"  and  exaggerated  forms  of  Socialism,  were  cla- 
morous for  a  greater  share  in  the  management  of  public 
affairs.  The  Communists  in  particular,  who  had  been  im- 
prisoned or  banished  after  their  excesses  in  1871,  were  par- 
doned, recalled,  brought  back  to  France  at  the  public  ex- 
pense, and  received  as  brothers  and  as  sufferers  for  a  com- 
mon cause  by  the  men  in  power.  They  constituted  one 
impelling  force  in  France,  ever  urging  the  government  and 
legislature  to  more  radical,  revolutionary,  anti-Christian 
measures.  We  see,  in  1887,  how  wonderfully  they  suc- 
ceeded. 

The  Anarchists,  though  only  more  consistent  Commu- 
nists, were  looked  upon  with  suspicion,  if  not  with  dread, 
by  the  rulers  of  France.  They  dared  to  draw  from  Social- 
istic and  Communistic  principles  their  legitimate  conse- 
quences :  they  said  and  say,  "  Two  and  two  'make  four." 

In  Germany  Socialism  was  more  in  its  doctrinal  and 
theoretical  stage.  It  had  not  penetrated  the  masses 
through  and  through.  The  laboring  classes,  to  whom  the 


3  76  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

contrast  between  wealth  and  extreme  and  wide-spread 
poverty  was  brought  home  by  daily  suffering,  were  ripe  for 
a  violent  solution  of  the  labor  question  ;  but  the  doctrines 
of  Socialism  had  not  yet  got  entire  hold  of  the  schools  or 
been  adopted  by  the  educated.  The  landed  aristocracy 
formed  a  great  barrier  in  Germany  to  the  spread  and  prac- 
tice of  these  theories.  Still  Socialism  was  daily  gaining 
ground. 

Nor  had  the  secret  societies  obtained  among  the  conser- 
vative and  practical  Teutonic  races  the  same  success  which 
they  had  achieved  among  the  Neo-Latin  peoples.  Both 
the  Socialists  and  the  Occult  Force  had  had  no  little  share 
in  preparing  the  public  mind  in  Germany  for  that  national 
unity  which  arose  out  of  the  war  of  1870-71.  But  they 
had  far  more  to  do  with  creating  and  fostering  the  public 
opinion  which  represented  the  Papacy  and  the  Catholic 
religion,  as  such,  as  the  natural  and  irreconcilable  enemies 
of  the  new  German  Empire. 

Fast  following  on  the  first  persecuting  laws  enacted 
against  the  Prussian  Catholics  came  Socialistic  conspiracies, 
disturbances,  and  attempts  against  the  life  of  the  sovereign. 
These  were  attributed  to  Catholics,  whether  maliciously  or 
not  we  do  not  stop  to  ask ;  and  Catholics,  therefore,  were 
made  a  theme  for  fiercer  denunciation  by  the  Kulturkampf 
organs.  The  highest  officials,  however,  could  not  long  ac- 
quiesce in  such  belief.  The  reports  of  their  own  police  had 
convinced  them  of  the  contrary. 

Very  soon  both  the  emperor  and  the  prince  chancellor 
had  good  reason  to  know  that  the  great  danger  for  the  em- 
pire they  had  built  up,  for  religion  and  social  order  in  Ger- 
many, came  from  the  doctrines  and  plots  of  Socialism — not 
from  the  intrigues  of  the  Jesuits,  the  doctrines  or  practices 
of  Catholicism,  or  from  the  fancied  hostility  of  the  Holy 
See. 

It  was  impossible  that  this  second  great  doctrinal  pro- 
nouncement should  not  have  made  a  deep  impression  on 
the  aged  emperor  and  his  far-seeing  minister. 

The   masterly   exposition    of    Socialistic   error  and    its 


EFFECTS  OF  THE  ENCYCLICAL  IN  GERMANY.       377 

effects  on  the  entire  framework  of  society  could  be  verified 
in  every  detail  by  what  was  daily  happening  all  over  France 
and  in  parts  of  Switzerland,  and  by  what  was  attempted  in 
Germany  and  Belgium. 

The  genesis  and  history  of  Socialistic  error  as  given  in 
the  encyclical  was  warmly,  angrily  even,  discussed  and  dis- 
puted. But  the  great  fact  asserted  by  the  Pope,  that 
with  the  spread  of  the  sixteenth-century  doctrines  the  su- 
pernatural, and  with  it  Christ  Himself,  was  gradually  ban- 
ished from  the  university  schools  of  non-Catholic  countries, 
could  not  be  denied.  Germany  had  experience  enough  of 
it.  Then  it  was  that  the  life  to  come  began  to  be  laughed 
at  and  left  out  of  men's  calculations.  There  was  nothing 
for  them  but  the  present — no  heaven,  no  hell.  Nothing 
was  left  to  the  disinherited  classes  in  society  to  compensate 
them  for  the  misery  and  wretchedness  of  their  present  lot ; 
nothing  to  make  them  satisfied  with  their  poverty  and  their 
ill-requited  toil ;  no  force  to  withhold  the  passions,  excited 
and  maddened  by  Socialism,  from  rushing  on  the  wealthy  and 
the  great,  and  gratifying  both  their  revenge  and  their  greed. 

The  great  doctrine  on  the  origin  of  social  power  and 
social  authority  was  still  more  striking  as  formulated  in  the 
Pontiff's  terse  and  classic  Latin.  With  the- Socialists  and 
all  who  adopt  the  modern  theory  of  civil  society  God  is 
nothing  and  He  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  state.  The 
people  alone  are  the  source  of  power;  they  commit  it  to 
whom  they  please.  The  depositaries  of  their  power  are 
responsible  to  the  people  only  for  the  discharge  of  their 
trust ;  beyond  the  people  we  need  not,  cannot  go.  So  that, 
after  all,  social  man  in  obeying  state  authority  is  only  obey- 
ing his  own  freely  chosen  representatives ;  in  obeying  the 
law  he  was  only  submitting  to  be  bound  by  the  act  of  his 
own  will. 

To  statesmen,  magistrates,  rulers — to  all  men  who  seek 
to  place  social  order  on  a  solid  and  sacred  basis — the  sol- 
emn utterances  of  the  encyclical  were  like  the  second  pro- 
mulgation of  the  law  on  which  rest  the  foundations  of  the 
moral  world. 


378  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

That  they  made  a  deep  impression  where  the  Pope 
wished  and  hoped  to  make  it  we  shall  not  say  at  present. 

One  by  one  all  the  errors  of  Socialism  are  confuted  and 
the  opposite  doctrines  clearly  defined  and  admirably  for- 
mulated. 

The  parallel  which  certain  writers  would  fain  establish 
between  the  humanitarian  doctrines  of  Socialism  and  those 
of  the  Gospel  is  shown  to  be  illusory.  The  equality  of  all 
men,  as  set  forth  in  the  latter,  is  founded  not  only  on  the 
same  human  nature  derived  from  the  same  parentage,  but 
from  the  same  sublime  supernatural  destiny  in  the  life  to 
come. 

The  inequality  which  exists  among  men  living  in  society 
arises  from  nature  and  its  Author,  just  as  from  Him  comes 
in  the  magistrate  the  right  to  rule,  and  in  the  subject  the 
duty  to  obey. 

Power — right  and  legitimate  power  in  the  social  body — 
is  from  God.  Human  society  is,  like  the  angelic,  a  hierar- 
chical gradation  of  orders  subordinated  one  to  the  other  in 
beautiful  harmony.  So  is  it  in  the  Church. 

Touching  with  a  rapid  and  masterly  hand  on  the  use  of 
power,  which  should  ever  be  fatherly,  like  that  of  God  Him- 
self, and  directed  solely  to  the  good  of  the  subject,  the 
Pope  shows  how  Socialistic  error  saps  the  foundation  of 
domestic  society  by  destroying  the  sanctity  and  unity  of 
marriage,  by  denying  the  authority  of  parents. 

Property,  its  division  and  its  rights,  is  next  described. 

On  February  28,  1879,  Leo  XIII.  held  a  consistory,  in 
which  he  had  the  great  consolation  of  detailing  to  the 
Sacred  College  the  pains  he  had  taken  to  restore  union  in 
the  Eastern  churches,  and  the  success  which  had  attend- 
ed his  efforts.  Monsignor  Aboliona,  a  man  in  every  way 
devoted  to  the  Holy  See,  had  been  duly  elected  to  the 
metropolitan  chair  of  Babylon ;  the  pallium  had  been  sent 
him  by  Rome. 

So  a  brighter  light  was  breaking  on  the  Christians  of  the 
East. 

But  a  little  more  than  a  month  later,  on  March  25,  the 


A    COUNCIL  OF  EDUCATION  FOR  ROME,  379 

Pope,  in  another  letter  to  the  cardinal  vicar,  denounces 
once  more  the  systematic  warfare  which  the  Piedmontese 
government  in  Rome,  in  conjunction  with  the  anti-Catholic 
sects  favored  by  the  municipality,  are  carrying  on  against 
the  religious  education  of  youth. 

In  order  to  counteract  the  labors  of  this  propaganda  the 
Holy  Father  institutes  a  Council  of  Education  for  Rome, 
composed  of  prelates  and  noblemen,  whose  duty  it  will  be 
to  watch  carefully  over  all  primary  schools  and  to  estab- 
lish new  ones  wherever  needed.  The  Pope  has  given  gene- 
rous aid  to  this  enterprise,  and  exhorts  all  good  Christians 
to  use  a  like  generosity. 

Thus  the  first  year  of  Leo  XIII. 's  Pontificate  had  been 
fruitful  in  unexpected  and  most  blessed  results. 

Not  all  unexpected,  however ;  for  those  who  were  well 
acquainted  with  the  man  and  with  the  qualities  which  he 
had  displayed  as  a  diplomat,  an  administrator,  and  a  teacher 
of  men,  had  confidently  hoped  that  he,  if  any  one  could, 
would  bring  about  peace  where  peace  had  so  far  appeared 
impossible. 


CHAPTER  XXIII. 

LEO  XIII.  AND  THE  EASTERN   PEOPLES. 

I. 

I.  Slavonic  Races  :  Centenary  of  Sts.  Cyril  and  Methodius.— 

2.  Tlie  Greeks  and  the   College  of  St.  Athanasius  — 

3.  The  Syrians. — 4.   The  Chaldeans  and  Armenians. 


€( 


'ARNEST  as  was  the  desire  felt  by  Leo  XIII.  to  re- 
concile with  the  Roman  Church  the  various  commu- 
nions in  the  East  which  the  schism  of  Photius  had  wrested 
from  the  centre  of  Catholic  unity,  or  to  enlighten  on  their 
errors  the  followers  of  the  ancient  heresies  of  Nestorius  and 
Eutyches,  there  seemed,  in  the  beginning  of  his  Pontificate, 
but  slight  prospects  of  such  reconciliation.  We  shall  see, 
however,  how  far  his  endeavors  were  blessed  with  success. 

At  present,  to  judge  aright  of  his  praiseworthy  labors  in 
this  regard,  it  will  be  instructive  to  glance  successively  at 
each  of  the  empires  to  which  they  extended,  and  to  esti- 
mate the  difficulties  which  the  Holy  See  had  to  contend 
with. 

I.   LEO   XIII.   AND  THE   SLAVONIC   RACES. 

During  the  four  last  years  of  the  reign  of  Pius  IX.  we 
find  the  Emperor  Alexander  II.,  who  risked  so  much  of  re- 
putation and  popularity  among  his  own  upper  classes  by 
emancipating  the  serfs,  displaying,  on  the  contrary,  toward 
his  Catholic  subjects  a  rigor  which  it  is  hard  to  find  words 
to  qualify. 

In  the  Parliamentary  papers  laid  on  the  table  of  the 
British  House  of  Commons  in  April,  1877,  a  series  of  per- 
secutions are  disclosed,  the  proceedings  of  which  would 
seem  incredible  in  themselves,  and  impossible  in  any 


CRUEL  PERSECUTIONS  OF  CA  THOLICS  IN  RUSSIA.       381 

Christian  land  in  this  nineteenth  century,  were  it  not  that 
they  are  vouched  for  by  the  British  officials  resident  in 
Russia. 

In  the  province  of  Chelm,  for  instance,  the  government 
used  all  manner  of  threats  and  seduction  to  induce  the 
clergy  to  bring  over  their  flocks  into  the  Russian  or  Ortho- 
dox communion.  Even  where  a  few  priests  yielded  to  fear 
and  thus  prostituted  their  sacred  ministry,  the  people  were 
too  firmly  attached  to  their  ancestral  faith  to  follow  their 
erring  shepherds.  All  this  strange  system  of  pression  and 
propagandism  only  filled  the  country  with  strife  and  vio- 
lence.* This  was  in  1871. 

In  1873  and  1874  the  provinces  of  Siedlce  and  Lublin 
were  the  theatre  of  a  like  proselytizing  campaign.  The 
people  revolted  against  the  violent  methods  used  to  coerce 
them  into  apostasy,  and  drew  on  themselves  the  rigors  of 
military  law,  all  this  "resulting  in  bloodshed,  loss  of  life, 
and  the  most  barbarous  treatment  inflicted  on  the  pea- 
sants." The  British  consul-general  who  furnishes  these 
details  gives  one  instance  which  will  enable  the  reader  to 
judge  of  this  novel  process  of  "converting"  souls.  At  a 
place  in  the  district  of  Minciewicz  the  priest  had  apostatized, 
and  the  people  would  not  permit  him  to  enter  the  church 
and  officiate  for  them.  He  appealed  to  the  military  autho- 
rities, who  sent  a  body  of  troops  to  enforce  obedience  on 
the  part  of  the  people.  These  filled  the  church  and  sur- 
rounded it  to  preserve  it  from  desecration.  They  were  hem- 
med in  by  the  military,  and  were  offered  the  choice  "of 
signing  a  declaration  accepting  the  priest,  and  on  their  refu- 
sal fifty  blows  with  the  nagaika  (Cossack  whip)  were  given  to 
every  adult  man,  twenty-five  to  every  woman,  and  ten  to 
every  child,  irrespective  of  age  or  sex — one  woman,  who  was 
more  vehement  than  the  rest,  receiving  as  much  as  a  hun- 
dred."f 

Finding  that  bodily  punishment  could  not  avail  to  shake 

*  Letter  of  Lieutenant-Colonel  Mansfield,  Consul-General  in  Poland,  to 
Lord  Granville. 

f  Letter  of  Colonel  Mansfield,  Jan.  29,  1874. 


382  LIFE  OF  LEO  XII T. 

the  constancy  of  these  heroic  peasants,  the  authorities  tried 
what  a  system  of  fines  would  do.  But  the  people  suffered 
everything  to  be  taken  from  them  while  remaining  true  to 
conscience. 

In  the  summer  of  1874  Alexander  II.  visited  Warsaw  in 
person.  The  Uniates,  or  Catholic  United  Greeks,  attempt- 
ed to  approach  him  with  a  petition  begging  him  to  examine 
into  their  grievances.  He  would  not  permit  them  to  ap- 
proach him.  From  that  moment,  says  Colonel  Mansfield, 
"  the  massacres  "  increased  in  ferocity,  and  the  Cossacks  re- 
ceived orders  to  "  hunt  down  "  the  Uniates  and  to  destroy 
their  crops,  all  of  which  were  ruthlessly  carried  out. 

In  1875  the  official  press  in  St.  Petersburg  triumphantly 
announced  that  forty-five  parishes,  containing  fifty  thousand 
persons  and  twenty-six  priests,  had  abjured  the  Roman  com- 
munion and  joined  the  Russian  official  church.  We  re- 
member the  sensation  such  an  announcement  produced  in 
Great  Britain  and  the  United  States.  The  thing  was  be- 
lieved till  the  Blue  Book  published  a  despatch  of  Lord 
Augustus  Loftus,  the  British  ambassador  in  St.  Petersburg, 
dated  January  29,  1875.  His  recital  of  the  truth  was  a  hide- 
ous revelation : 

"  The  passing  over,"  he  says,  "  of  these  fifty  thousand 
United  Greeks  has  been  effected  by  various  means,  in  which 
physical  maltreatment  has  formed  a  not  inconsiderable  ele- 
ment. .  .  .  The  details  of  the  different  degrees  of  compul- 
sion in  the  various  villages  would  take  too  much  space  to 
relate,  but  I  cite  as  a  specimen  what  I  heard  from  a  gen- 
tleman, of  whose  veracity  I  have  no  reason  to  doubt,  of 
what  took  place  in  a  village  on  his  property.  The  peasants 
were  assembled  and  beaten  by  the  Cossacks  until  the  mili- 
tary surgeon  stated  that  more  would  endanger  life.  They 
were  then  driven,  through  a  half-frozen  river  up  to  their 
waists,  into  the  parish  church,  through  files  of  soldiers,  and 
there  their  names  were  entered  into  the  petition  as  above, 
and  passed  out  at  an  opposite  door,  the  peasants  all  the  time 
crying  out :  You  may  call  us  Orthodox,  but  we  remain  in  the 
fait  h  of  our  fathers" 


ADVANCES  MADE  BY  THE  RUSSIAN  GOVERNMENT.     383 

Is  this  not  the  heroism  of  the  early  martyrs  ? 

In  the  government  of  Lublin  the  authorities  registered 
250,000  persons  as  "  converted  "  by  similar  methods.  This 
went  on  all  through  1875.  But  in  January,  1876,  Colonel 
Mansfield  reports  that  the  "  converts  "  repudiated  the  idea 
of  having  changed  their  religion,  steadily  refusing  the  ser- 
vices of  any  priests  but  their  own,  themselves  baptizing  their 
own  babes,  burying  their  dead,  and  declining  to  enter  the 
Russian  churches. 

In  New  York  and  elsewhere  in  the  United  States  we 
cannot  have  forgotten  the  harrowing  narratives  of  some  of 
these  victims  of  a  cruel  and  unchristian  zeal  who  had  suc- 
ceeded in  escaping  from  Siberia.  There,  they  said,  whole 
districts  were  peopled  by  the  unhappy  but  most  honorable 
exiles,  laymen  and  priests,  whose  only  crime  was  their  un- 
shaken fidelity  to  God  and  country.  For  we  must  not  over- 
look this  fact,  that  antipathy  of  race  entered  more  into  this 
persecution  than  antagonism  of  creed. 

Pius  IX.,  in  his  last  years,  had  not  ceased  to  protest  and 
remonstrate  against  these  atrocious  persecutions.  They 
had,  in  1845,  when  the  Emperor  Nicholas  visited  Rome, 
formed  the  subject  of  a  stirring  personal  appeal,  if  not  a 
denouncement  of  divine  judgment,  from  Gregory  XVI.  to 
the  omnipotent  ruler  of  Russia.*  The  emperor  issued,  pale, 
disturbed,  terrified,  from  the  Pope's  presence. 

Pius  IX.  failed  not  to  warn  the  successor  of  Nicholas  of 
the  terrible  wrongs  inflicted  by  him  on  the  Catholics  of 
Poland,  as  well  as  on  those  of  the  other  provinces  of  the 
Russian  Empire.  Did  the  fall  of  the  temporal  power  em- 
bolden the  autocrat  to  continue  his  cruel  methods  of  effect- 
ing religious  unity  in  his  dominions? 

We  do  not  like  to  think  so.  But  in  1877,  in  the  first 
days  of  June,  the  Russian  representative  in  Rome  laid  be- 
fore His  Holiness,  together  with  the  compliments  and  con- 
gratulations of  his  imperial  master,  the  outlines  of  a  plan  for 
adjusting  all  differences  between  the  Vatican  and  St.  Peters- 

*  See  Cardinal  Wiseman,  "  Recollections  of  the  Four  Last  Popes." 


384  LIFE  OF  LEO  X1IL 

burg.  This  was  when  it  was  politic  to  conciliate  the  Ca- 
tholics of  the  Turkish  Empire  during  the  terrible  Turko- 
Russian  war  of  1877.  At  any  rate,  on  July  26  Cardinal 
Simeoni,  Secretary  of  State,  placed  in  the  hands  of  Prince 
OurousofT,  the  Russian  charg6  d'affaires,  an  official  state- 
ment on  the  grievances  of  the  Holy  See  with  regard  to  the 
Imperial  government,  as  well  as  an  enumeration  of  the  spe- 
cial remedies  demanded.  This  was  addressed  to  the  czar. 
Two  weeks  followed,  and  no  acknowledgment  of  having  re- 
ceived the  memoir  was  sent  to  the  cardinal.  Then  it  was 
returned  most  insultingly.  Cardinal  Simeoni,  in  a  letter 
dated  August  19,  resented  with  dignity  and  proper  spirit 
this  proceeding,  without  a  single  precedent  in  the  history  of 
diplomatic  intercourse.  The  Holy  Father  dismissed  Prince 
Ourousoff  without  granting  him  a  farewell  audience. 

Of  course  all  this  did  not  turn  away  the  Cossack  whip 
from  the  shoulders  of  the  poor  Uniates  or  close  up  the  road 
to  Siberia  for  Russian  Catholics. 

Leo  XIII.  on  his  accession  endeavored  to  restore  friend- 
ly relations  with  the  Russian  court  as  well  as  with  the  Ger- 
man. In  1880  a  favorable  opportunity  presented  itself  to 
the  Holy  Father  of  reaching  the  heart  of  the  czar.  The 
twenty-fifth  anniversary  of  the  latter's  accession  to  the 
throne  was  celebrated  with  great  rejoicings  in  St.  Peters- 
burg, and  the  Pope  sent  his  congratulations  through  the  in- 
ternuncio  in  Vienna.  This  was  so  well  received  that  later, 
on  April  12,  the  Holy  Father  was  encouraged  to  write  the 
following  letter  to  Alexander  himself: 

"StRE:  All  the  prosperity  which,  through  our  cardinal 
pro-nuncio  in  Vienna,  we  wished  your  Imperial  Majesty  on 
the  occasion  of  the  twenty-fifth  anniversary  of  your  acces- 
sion to  the  throne,  we  now  wish  anew  in  this  letter,  praying 
from  our  heart  that  the  King  of  Kings  and  Lord  of  Lords 
may  fulfil  our  prayers. 

"  We  cannot,  however,  forbear  to  profit  by  this  oppor- 
tunity to  appeal  to  your  Majesty,  beseeching  you  to  bestow 
your  thoughts  and  attention  on  the  cruel  condition  of  the 
Catholics  belonging  to  your  vast  empire.  Their  state  fills 


LETTER    TO  ALEXANDER  II.  385 

us  with  unceasing  pain  and  anxiety.  The  deep  zeal  which 
moves  us,  in  the  discharge  of  our  office  of  Supreme  Pastor 
of  the  Church,  to  provide  for  the  spiritual  needs  of  these 
faithful  Catholics,  should,  it  seems  to  us,  impel  your  Ma- 
jesty, in  the  midst  of  so  many  political  revolutions,  of  so 
many  convulsions  produced  by  greedy  human  passions,  to 
grant  to  the  Catholic  Church  such  liberty  as  would  assured- 
ly create  peace,  beget  fidelity,  and  bind  to  your  person  the 
trusting  hearts  of  your  subjects. 

"Your  Majesty's  sense  of  justice  and  right  moves  us  to 
hope  that  we  can  both  bring  about  an  accord  entirely  to  our 
mutual  satisfaction.  For  your  Majesty  cannot  be  ignorant 
of  the  fact  that  the  Catholic  religion  deems  it  her  duty 
everywhere  to  spread  the  spirit  of  peace  and  to  labor  to 
preserve  the  tranquillity  of  kingdoms  and  peoples. 

"  Trusting,  therefore,  that  our  wishes  in  this  regard 
shall  be  happily  fulfilled,  we  meanwhile  pray  with  our 
whole  heart  Almighty  God  to  keep  you  long  safe  from  all 
ill,  to  inspire  you  with  salutary  counsels,  and  to  unite  you 
to  us  in  perfect  charity." 

The  letter  has  a  prophetic  significance  in  view  of  the 
tragic  death  of  Alexander,  which  startled  the  entire  civil 
ized  world  ere  another  twelvemonth  had  elapsed.  That 
the  Sovereign  Pontiff's  words,  so  different  from  the  empty 
expressions  in  which  sovereigns  exchange  compliments,  did 
strike  the  emperor,  is  attested  by  the  fact  that  two  of  his 
sons,  the  Archdukes  Sergius  and  Paul,  were  sent  to  Rome 
before  the  end  of  the  year,  and  were  instrumental  in  re- 
opening friendly  intercourse  between  the  Vatican  and  St. 
Petersburg.  The  author  met  these  princes  by  chance  in 
Siena  as  well  as  in  Rome,  and  conceived,  as  did  most 
people,  the  hope  that  the  cordial  understanding  of  which 
the  Pope  spoke  in  his  letter  would  be  brought  about  be- 
tween the  two  sovereigns.  But  death  came  to  mar  this 
prospect.  And  the  persecution  still  continues  to  rage. 

Leo  XIII.,  while  addressing  himself  directly  to  sove- 
reigns and  the  statesmen  who  administer  great  empires, 
did  not  neglect  another  means  of  staying  the  progress  of 


386  /.//•/•:  of-'  LEO  XIIL 

persecution,  of  preparing  an  antidote  to  wide-spread  error, 
and  of  sowing  broadcast  the  seeds  of  truth — that  is,  public 
opinion.  No  statesman  in  modern  times  has  formed  a  truer 
estimate  of  its  power,  or  seen  more  clearly  how  its  influ- 
ence should  be  cultivated  and  used  for  the  best  interests  of 
religion  and  society.  - 

His  encyclicals,  allocutions,  and  other  public  utterances 
are  all  calculated  and  directed  toward  the  one  immediate 
purpose  of  enlightening  the  public  mind  and  preparing  a 
public  opinion  favorable  to  the  changes  he  wishes  to  effect. 
Thus  his  letter  to  the  Emperor  Alexander  II.  might  have 
remained  unknown  to  all  save  the  comparatively  few  who 
possess  and  read  the  "Acta"  of  Leo  XIII.'s  Pontificate. 
Hut  the  Pope  had  even  a  grander  object  in  view  than  the 
mitigating  of  the  hard  lot  of  the  Russian  Catholics:  he 
wished  to  raise  the  flag  of  reunion  with  the  Church  of 
Rome  in  the  sight  of  all  these  Eastern  churches  so  sadly 
fallen  away  from  their  ancient  freedom  and  their  ancient 
splendor. 

To  the  Slavonic  populations  within  the  Russian,  Aus- 
tro-Hungarian,  and  Turkish  Empires  the  names  of  the 
great  brother-saints,  Cyril  and  Methodius,  are  deservedly 
dear.  They  were  for  the  Slavs  what  Peter  and  Paul  were 
to  the  Romans,  Patrick  to  the  Irish,  Augustine  to  the  Eng- 
lish, and  Boniface  to  the  Germans.  But  Cyril  and  Me- 
thodius lived,  labored,  died  in  the  communion  of  the 
Holy  See,  and  in  strict  subordination  to  its  authority. 
Indeed,  Cyril  died  in  Rome  and  was  buried  there.  He  it 
was  who  invented  the  alphabet  still  in  use  among  the 
Slavs.  He  is,  therefore,  in  a  manner,  the  parent  of  Sla- 
vonic civilization. 

The  two  brother-apostles  had  from  the  ninth  century 
been  revered  as  saints  both  by  the  Roman  and  the  Eastern 
churches.  The  return  of  their  centenary  in  1880  offered 
Leo  XI II.  one  of  those  happy  opportunities  for  winning 
still  more  the  affection  and  respect  of  the  wide-spread 
nationalities  who  worship  the  memory  of  Sts.  Cyril  and 
Methodius  as  their  apostles.  The  Pope  wrote  an  encycli- 


CENTENARY  OF  THE  APOSTLES  OF  THE  SLAVS.     387 

cal  letter,  extending  to  the  universal  Church  the  duty  of 
honoring  the  two  saints  by  a  solemn  office.  Dated  on 
September  23,  this  magnificent  encyclical,  in  every  way 
worthy  of  the  head  and  heart  of  Leo  XIII.,  recounts  the 
reasons  which  induce  him  to  pay  such  honor  to  these  illus- 
trious brothers. 

There  is  a  rapid  and  pregnant  biographical  sketch, 
such  as  Leo  XIII.  knows  how  to  fill  up,  like  the  frame 
of  a  miniature  painting,  with  the  most  exquisite  details, 
finished  with  a  master's  hand.  He  insists  on  the  life- 
long relations  of  the  two  apostles  with  the  Holy  See,  and 
recites  the  unceasing  solicitude  of  the  Roman  Pontiffs, 
after  the  death  of  these  holy  men,  to  maintain  the  Slavs 
in  the  Catholic  faith  and  to  promote  their  material  pros- 
perity as  well. 

"  Wherefore,"  the  encyclical  says,  "  we  thank  God  for 
giving  us  an  opportunity  to  do  a  grateful  thing  to  the 
peoples  of  Slavonic  race,  and  to  help  contribute  to  their 
welfare  with  a  zeal  in  no  whit  less  than  that  shown  by  our 
predecessors.  Our  sole  aim,  our  only  wish,  is  to  use  every 
exertion  to  provide  these  peoples  with  a  greater  number  of 
bishops  and  priests.  These  will  confirm  them  in  the  pro- 
fession of  the  true  faith,  in  dutiful  obedience  to  the  true 
Church  of  Christ,  and  daily  experience  will  teach  them 
more  and  more  what  blessings  accrue  from  Catholic  insti- 
tutions to  families  as  well  as  to  all  classes  in  society. 
These  Slavonic  churches  are  to  us  an  object  of  especial 
care.  There  is  nothing  we  desire  more  ardently  than  to 
promote  their  welfare  and  prosperity,  and  to  bind  them  to 
us  by  the  ties  of  perpetual  concord,  which  to  them  means  a 
bond  of  perpetual  safety."  * 

The  Slavs  responded  with  great  enthusiasm  to  the  en- 
cyclical of  the  Holy  Father.  The  centenary  was  every- 
where celebrated  with  great  solemnity.  A  numerous  pil- 
grimage of  representative  men  of  Slavonic  origin  from 
Austria-Hungary,  Bulgaria,  Servia,  and  other  Turkish  de- 

*  "  Acta  Leonis  XIII.,"  September  23,  1880. 


388  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII, 

pendencies  came  to  Rome  to  express  to  Leo  XIII.  the 
gratitude  of  the  various  nationalities.  It  was  one  of  those 
spectacles  which  consoled  the  heart  of  the  Pontiff  for  the 
bitter  cup  held  to  his  lips  by  Italians.  It  should  have 
opened  the  eyes  of  the  purblind  Picdmontese  government 
to  the  absurdity  of  maintaining  in  Rome  a  rival  sovereignty 
with  a  power  which  extended  its  spiritual  sway  and  its  in- 
comparable influence  beyond  the  Peninsula,  beyond  the 
Adriatic  and  the  Mediterranean,  to  every  Eastern  as  to 
every  Western  land. 

All  through  the  remaining  months  of  1880  and  during 
1 88 1  letters  from  bishops  and  addresses  came  continually  to 
the  Vatican,  thanking  the  Pope  for  his  encyclical  and  the 
honor  done  to  the  Slavs  in  the  persons  of  their  revered 
apostles.  From  Bohemia,  from  Croatia,  these  expressions 
of  gratitude  were  particularly  significant.  Replying  to  Car- 
dinal Prince  Schwarzenberg,  Archbishop  of  Prague,  and  the 
bishops  of  Bohemia,  on  July  14,  1881,  the  Pope  gives  vent 
to  his  joy.  The  Slavonic  pilgrimage,  and  all  that  he  sees 
and  hears  about  the  symptoms  of  reunion  and  religious  re- 
vival, fill  him  with  gratitude  to  God  and  with  well-founded 
hopes  for  the  great  future  of  these  peoples.  He  will  omit 
nothing  which  can  help  to  promote  among  them  the  divine 
honor.  The  bishops  must  labor  strenuously  to  promote 
education,  to  promote  in  particular  that  of  the  clergy,  who 
are  to  lead  the  van  of  all  true  progress. 

On  July  5  of  that  same  year  Leo  XIII.  gave  a  specimen 
of  his  practical  love  for  the  Slavs  and  his  enlightened  inte- 
rest in  their  spiritual  welfare  by  doing  for  Bosnia  and  Herze- 
govina what  had  been  done  for  England  and  Scotland- 
establishing,  namely,  a  regular  hierarchy  in  these  regions. 
He  rejoices,  he  says  in  the  bull  of  institution,  that  he  has 
been  enabled  to  accomplish  what  so  many  of  his  predeces- 
sors had  in  vain  yearned  to  do.* 

The  movement  toward  reconciliation  and  reunion  has 
gone  on  ever  since,  and  is  not  likely  to  die  out,  in  spite  of 

*  Bull  Ex  hoc  augusta,  July  5,  1881. 


SAINTS  CYRIL  AND  METHODIUS  389 

the  opposition,  secret  or  open,  of  the  powerful  schismatic 
Greek  churches. 

It  was  the  Roman  Church  which  sanctioned  the  mission 
and  the  acts  of  the  two  brother-apostles ;  it  was  to  Rome 
that  they  referred  all  they  did  for  blessing  and  approval. 
They  came  thither  in  869,  Cyril  bringing  with  him  the 
remains  of  St.  Clement,  Pope  and  martyr,  from  the  Crimea, 
whither  he  had  been  sent  to  labor  in  the  mines  and  had 
suffered  death  for  Christ.  Cyril,  wasted  by  his  apostolic 
labors,  died  there  and  was  buried  with  the  most  solemn 
pomp  in  the  church  of  St.  Clement,  by  the  side  of  the 
martyr-Pope — that  "  Clement  whose  name  is  written  in  the 
book  of  life."  Methodius  returned  to  labor  alone  among 
his  Slavs,  bearing  now  in  his  heart  a  double  charity  and 
heroism,  bent  on  running  his  race  and  winning  the  crown  to 
which  his  loved  companion  had  attained.  He  performed 
prodigies  of  labor  more  astonishing  than  any  miracle, 
dying  in  Moravia,  which  he  had  converted  and  civilized,  in 
September,  880. 

To  these  two  the  Slavonic  races  owe  not  only  the  pos- 
session of  the  Gospel  truth,  but  their  literature  and  the 
very  characters  they  use  down  to  the  present  day. 

Well  may  they  reverence  their  names ! 

Leo  XIII.,  therefore,  did  a  wise  and  a  politic  thing  in 
publishing  his  encyclical,  and  giving  to  this  centenary  cele- 
bration the  extraordinary  solemnity  which  won  the  Slavo- 
nic heart. 

But  he  did  not  confine  this  policy  to  that  race  alone 
among  the  Eastern  peoples. 

II.   THE   EASTERN   GREEKS,  AND  THE   PEOPLES  WHO   CLING 
TO   THE   GREEK   LITURGY   OUTSIDE   OF   GREECE. 

Gregory  XIII.,  whose  great  mind  first  conceived  the 
idea  of  founding  the  Congregation  de  Propaganda  Fide  and 
colleges  for  educating  in  Rome  missionaries  for  all  nations, 
began  by  founding  on  January  23,  1577,  the  Greek  College 
of  St.  Athanasius,  which  was  destined  to  be,  for  all  the 


3  -)O  LIFE  OF  LEO  xnt. 

nationalities  who  used  the  Greek  language  in  their  liturgy, 
what  the  College  of  Propaganda  became  later  for  all  na- 
tions. 

This  college  prospered  wonderfully  and  became  a  nur- 
sery of  great  scholars  and  apostolic  men. 

Leo  XIII.  conceived  that  it  was  not  sufficient  to  guard 
the  faith  of  the  Slavonic  races  over  whom  Panslavism  and 
the  schismatical  Greek  Church  seek  to  establish  an  exclu- 
sive domination,  but  that  the  light  of  Catholic  truth  should 
be  carried  into  the  very  strongholds  of  that  same  Greek 
Church  itself. 

He  therefore,  from  the  beginning  of  his  Pontificate,  be- 
stowed the  greatest  attention  on  the  Greek  College.  He 
reorganized  its  studies,  enlarged  and  elevated  their  stan- 
dard, selected  the  most  illustrious  Greek  scholars  to  teach 
the  students  their  native  literature,  and  more  especially  to 
perfect  them  in  rhetoric,  in  the  most  perfect  art  of  the 
preacher.  For  classic  Greek  and  all  the  other  languages, 
ancient  and  modern,  these  young  men  frequent  the  classes 
of  the  Seminario  Romano  and  other  great  schools  which 
the  present  Pontiff  has  done  so  much  to  improve. 

Besides  this,  knowing  how  fondly  the  Greeks  cling  to 
their  liturgy,  the  Pope  has  founded  in  the  college  two  spe- 
cial chairs — one  for  the  teaching  of  everything  pertaining  to 
the  history,  theory,  and  practice  of  the  Greek  liturgy,  and 
another  for  the  teaching  of  ecclesiastical  chant.  Church 
music  is  a  desideratum  in  the  East,  and  Leo  XIII.  has 
made  up  his  mind  that  the  young  men  who  go  forth  in  future 
from  the  halls  of  St.  Athanasius  shall  bring  with  them  not 
only  all  the  graces  of  accomplished  oratory  for  the  pulpit,  but 
a  knowledge  of  the  best  Church  music  known  in  Rome. 

The  growing  fame  of  the  Greek  College  attracted  so 
many  pupils  that  the  Pope,  in  spite  of  his  limited  means 
and  the  many  calls  upon  his  generosity,  has  just  completed 
a  new  wing  to  the  building,  enabling  it  to  face  all  the 
demands  for  room  made  on  it. 

This  was  solemnly  inaugurated  and  blessed  on  May  2, 
1886,  the  feast  of  St.  Athanasius,  when  the  best  musical 


THE  GREEK  AND  OTTOMAN  CA  THOLICS.  39  1 

• 

critics  in  Rome  were  equally  surprised  and  charmed  by  the 
splendpr  of  the  morning  and  evening  services  and  the  vocal 
performances  of  the  students. 

Now  think  for  a  moment  of  the  various  countries  from 
which  these  young  men  come,  and  say  if  it  be  not  a  divine 
thought  thus  to  bring  together  men  born  so  widely  asunder 
and  often  separated  by  national  antipathies  which  a  unity  of 
liturgy  is  not  sufficient  to  overcome  without  the  aid  of  di- 
vine charity. 

The  former  Greek  colonies  in  Italy  itself  and  the  islands 
once  belonging  to  her  are  not  only  permitted  by  the  Holy 
See  but  obliged  to  celebrate  the  Greek  liturgy.  So  there 
are  students  from  Sicily,  Calabria,  Naples,  Leghorn,  Malta, 
and  Corsica.  Besides  these  Italo-Greeks  there  are  the  Hel- 
lenes, or  Greeks  proper,  the  Roumanians,  the  Bulgarians, 
the  sons  of  the  vast  Ruthenian  branches,  and  the  Melchites. 

There  is  a  vicariate-apostolic  in  Greece.  But  there  the 
Russian  influence  is  all-powerful,  and  it  is  only  by  slow  de- 
grees that  the  old  prejudices  and  antipathies  cherished 
so  fondly  in  the  nineteenth  century  by  a  far-seeing  but  un- 
scrupulous policy  can  be  overcome,  and  a  way  made  for  the 
entrance  of  truth  into  minds  and  hearts. 

III.   PEOPLES    OF  THE   OTTOMAN   EMPIRE. 

Brief  as  has  been  the  reign  of  Leo  XIII.,  his  enlight- 
ened zeal  and  prudent  policy  have  already  done  as  much  to 
revive  Christianity  in  the  Turkish  and  Persian  dominions  as 
the  insane  ambition  of  the  republican  rulers  of  France  has 
done  to  ruin  its  best  interests  in  the  far  East.  Let  us  gather 
from  the  lips  of  Leo  XIII.  himself  what  estimate  he  had 
formed  of  these  venerable  Eastern  churches,  and  what 
measures  he  adopted  to  aid  them  in  their  straits  and  to 
build  up  among  them  the  edifice  of  religion  and  civilization: 

"  Everything  pertaining  to  the  Eastern  churches,"  he 
says  in  the  allocution  of  February  28,  1879,  "because  of 
the  supreme  ministry  entrusted  to  us,  we  deem  to  be  deserv- 
ing of  peculiar  solicitude  and  zeal ;  we,  indeed,  find  it  to  have 


392  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIIL 

• 

been  so  held  by  our  predecessors  in  every  century.  .  .  . 
For  they  knew  the  pristine  pre-eminence  of  these  countries, 
in  which  the  Sun  of  Justice  arose  for  mankind,  as  well  as  the 
glory  of  these  ancient  churches  which  produced  men  who 
were  the  shining  lights  of  heavenly  wisdom  and  wonderful 
holiness. 

"Wherefore,. from  the  very  beginning  of  our  Pontificate, 
seeing  the  sad  troubles  to  which  the  churches  of  the  East 
were  a  prey,  we  endeavored  to  give  what  help  we  could  to 
each  one  of  them  in  its  need.  Finding  a  favorable  oppor- 
tunity for  taking  measures,  through  the  ambassadors  of  the 
chief  European  sovereigns,  to  restore  peace  to  the  East,  we 
employed  every  possible  means  to  have  full  liberty  publicly 
guaranteed  and  sanctioned  for  the  exercise  there  of  the 
Catholic  religion.  Having  happily  succeeded  in  this,  it  is 
now  our  firm  purpose  to  take  every  pains  to  have  the  right 
thus  guaranteed  fully  upheld  in  practice.  .  .  . 

"  We  trust,  on  the  other  hand,  that  those  who  carry  on 
the  government  of  the  Ottoman  Empire  shall  easily  under- 
stand that  it  is  their  interest  to  grant  in  the  fullest  measure 
to  the  Catholics  of  their  jurisdiction  all  that  right  and  justice 
demand  ;  and  this  all  the  more  readily  that  they  have  lately 
had  splendid  practical  proofs  of  the  loyalty  of  these  Catho- 
lics, of  their  devotion  to  the  state,  on  both  of  which  their 
enemies  endeavored  to  cast  odious  suspicions  by  calumnies 
that  did  them  supreme  injustice. 

"...  We  recall  to  your  minds  that  last  year  the  Church 
of  Chaldea  became  widowed  of  her  patriarch  in  the  person 
of  our  venerable  brother,  Joseph  Audo,  whom  Pius  IX.  had 
confirmed  and  instituted  in  that  dignity  on  September  u, 
1848.  This  prelate,  ...  in  the  last  years  of  his  life,  carried 
away  by  the  advice  of  evil  counsellors,  forgot  his  duty 
toward  this  Apostolic  See.  But,  admonished  by  the  apos- 
tolic authority,  he  returned  to  his  duty,  gave  evidence  of  his 
obedience  to  the  Sovereign  Pontiff,  incurred  and  bore  with 
Christian  fortitude  on  that  account  many  annoyances  from 
those  of  his  nation,  and  on  his  death-bed,  with  his  latest 
breath,  expressed  his  sorrow  for  his  fault,  bore  witness  to  his 


THE  CHURCH  IN  CHALDEA  AND  MESOPOTAMIA.     393 

love  and  devotion   to  the   Chair  of   Peter  and  the  Vicar  of 
Christ,  and  left  a  great  example  of  edification  behind  him. 

"  After  his  death  the  bishops  of  the  Chaldaic  rite  met  in 
council  at  Alkosh,  as  the  canons  require,  and  in  the  usual 
form  elected,  on  July  26  last  past,  Peter  Elias  Abolionan, 
Bishop  of  Gezir,  to  fill  the  office  of  patriarch  of  Babylon  of 
the  Chaldeans.  .  .  ." 

The  Sublime  Porte  was  not  one  of  the  last  powers  to  feel 
and  to  acknowledge  the  truth  of  Leo  XIII. 's  affirmation 
that  the  Catholic  Church  is  everywhere  a  mighty  element  of 
peace,  order,  security,  unity,  and  stability  to  the  nations  and 
their  rulers.  It  acknowledged  that  the  successful  efforts 
to  bring  about  concord  between  the  Holy  See  and  the 
Eastern  schismatics,  or  between  the  rival  Christian  denomi- 
nations themselves,  proved  to  be  a  great  benefit  bestowed 
upon  the  empire. 

The  Sublime  Porte  confirmed  the  election  of  Monsignor 
Abolionan  as  patriarch  of  Babylon,  and  granted  him  the 
firman  ratifying  the  Holy  Father's  approbation  of  his  elec- 
tion. This  was  an  official  acknowledgment  of  the  patriarch 
as  the  head  of  his  nation — the  Chaldeans — and  a  solemn 
guarantee  of  full  religious  liberty  to  himself  and  his  people. 

It  was  a  great  and  peaceful  triumph  won  by  Leo  XIII. 

This  was  followed  almost  immediately  by  the  healing 
of  the  deplorable  schism  which  had  taken  place  in  another 
diocese  of  Mesopotamia,  Zachan.  The  bishop  who  had  in- 
truded himself  into  the  see,  and  his  followers  among  the 
clergy,  the  monks,  and  the  laity,  submitted  in  all  humility  to 
the  patriarch  and  asked  for  absolution  from  the  Holy  See. 

"  From  all  this,"  the  Holy  Father  says  in  his  allocution 
of  May  12,  "we  conceive  well-founded  hope  of  seeing  the 
baneful  schism  which  has  so  long  afflicted  the  Catholics  of 
Mesopotamia  entirely  extinguished." 

A  new  joy  was  added  to  these,  as  the  Pontiff  expresses 
it,  by  the  appeasement  of  the  long  and  bloody  feud  between 
the  Jacobite  Nestorians  of  Syria  and  the  Catholics  of  the 
Syrian  rite.  There  had  been  a  brief  misunderstanding  be- 
tween the  Syrian  Catholic  patriarch  and  the  government, 


394  LIFE  op  LEO  XIIL 

and  the  Ncstorians,  under  pretence  of  supporting  the  civil 
authority,  had  taken  forcible  possession  of  the  Catholic 
churches,  refusing,  on  any  account,  to  give  them  up.  The 
Holy  Father,  having,  through  his  delegate  in  Constanti- 
nople, obtained  the  ear  of  the  Imperial  government,  had 
the  question  of  right  submitted  to  the  arbitration  of  the 
British  and  French  ambassadors  in  that  capital. 

The  decision  was  in  favor  of  the  Catholics.  But  so  judi- 
cious and  conciliatory  was  the  conduct  of  the  Catholic  offi- 
cials that  a  number  of  Jacobite  families  renounced  their  sect, 
and  numbers  of  others  seemed  disposed  to  follow  their  ex 
ample. 

A  like  happy  termination  concluded  the  deplorable 
schism  which  had  taken  place  among  the  Armenians.  These 
are  very  powerful  in  Constantinople,  where  their  wealth  ex- 
ercises great  influence. 

Among  them,  too,  the  definition  of  the  dogma  of  the 
Pontifical  Infallibility  in  1870  had  been  taken  advantage  of 
by  the  evil-minded  to  stir  up  the  jealousy  of  the  govern- 
ment against  the  Holy  See,  and  to  produce  some  such  scan- 
dalous and  absurd  division  as  that  caused  in  Bavaria  by 
Dollinger  and  the  Old  Catholics.  But  as  in  Germany,  so 
in  Turkey,  the  prejudices  and  misconceptions  begotten  by 
heated  and  one-sided  theological  discussions  and  by  latent 
national  jealousies  and  antipathies  passed  away,  and  people 
began  to  see  that  they  had  acted  rashly  and  irrationally. 

The  Armenian  Archbishop  of  Diarbekir,  Monsignor  Bah- 
tiarian,  and  the  Armenian  Bishop  of  Cyprus,  Gaspari.m, 
were  both  ambitious  men,  who  thought  that  the  stir  made  in 
Germany  and  all  over  Continental  Europe  by  the  dogma  of 
Papal  Infallibility  offered  them  a  favorable  opportunity  for 
advancing  their  own  interests.  They  won  over  to  their 
designs  a  number  of  secular  priests  and  monks,  and  a  large 
following  among  the  laity.  One  of  these  monks,  Kiupelian, 
caused  himself  to  be  elected  in  a  conventicle  as  civil  patri- 
arch of  the  Armenians,  and  Bahtiarian  himself  was  therein 
chosen  as  religious  patriarch  or  Catholicos  of  Cilicia.  Now, 
Monsignor  Antony  Har.sun  had  been  for  many  years  the 


END  OF  THE  ARMENIAN  SCHISM,  395 

acknowledged  patriarch  and  catholicos  of  the  Armenians  of 
Cilicia,  the  civil  and  religious  head  of  the  nation  therefore. 
But  as  he,  an  old  pupil  of  the  Propaganda,  humble,  consci- 
entious, devoted,  and  too  well  informed  not  to  know  the 
utter  falsity  of  the  charges  made  against  the  Pope,  remained 
firm  in  his  attachment  to  the  Holy  See,  the  government, 
deceived  by  Bahtiarian  and  Gasparian,  was  prevailed  on  to 
banish  Monsignor  Hassun  from  Constantinople. 

Kiupelian  was  consecrated  by  the  two  schismatical  bish- 
ops, and  officially  recognized  by  the  government  as  civil  pa- 
triarch of  the  Armenians.  But  these  refused  to  acknow- 
ledge the  division  of  authority,  and  would  not  obey  Bahti- 
arian as  catholicos  or  the  religious  patriarch.  Disgusted 
or  threatened,  the  disappointed  schismatic  withdrew  to  the 
Armenian  convent  on  Mount  Lebanon. 

Meanwhile  Monsignor  Hassun  was  subjected  to  many  in- 
dignities, but  his  virtue  and  patience  were  proof  against  the 
most  bitter  trials.  And  so  things  went  on  among  the  Ar- 
menians, the  schism  even  spreading  to  Egypt,  till  the  acces- 
sion of  Leo  XIII. 

On  March  10,  1879,  Archbishop  Kiupelian,  urged  by  re- 
morse, wrote  to  the  vizier  renouncing  his  episcopal  and  offi- 
cial rank,  expressing  his  sorrow  at  the  wrong  done  to  the 
Holy  See  and  the  lawful  patriarch.  He  cast  himself  at  the 
feet  of  the  latter,  who  forthwith  urged  him  to  go  to  Rome 
and  there  seek  forgiveness  from  the  Holy  Father.  Arriving 
in  Rome  at  the  beginning  of  April,  he  at  once  wrote  to  His 
Holiness.  The  Pope  received  him  with  the  greatest  kindness, 
and  allowed  him  to  retain  the  title  and  insignia  of  bishop, 
although  the  culprit  had  received  them  so  unworthily. 

But  the  Holy  Father  calculated  the  effect  which  this 
clemency  would  have  in  bringing  back  the  other  schisma- 
tics. He  was  not  mistaken.  On  November  26  following 
Monsignor  Gasparian  came  to  cast  himself  at  the  feet  of 
the  Pope,  and  was  received  with  a  like  tender  charity.  In 
the  summer  of  1880  the  schismatic  Armenian  bishop  at 
Cairo,  Davidian,  also  returned  to  the  fold,  and  at  length 
Bahtiarian  himself  asked  for  absolution  for  his  sin. 


396  LIFE  OF  LEO  XI I  1. 

In  April,  1880,  the  Pope  wrote  to  the  sultan,  Abdul 
Hamid,  to  thank  him  for  his  prompt  readiness  to  recall  and 
reinstate  Monsignor  Hassun.  The  latter  was  presented  by 
the  delegate,  Monsignor  Grasselli,  and  was  received  with  ex- 
treme pleasure  by  the  sultan. 

Thus  was  this  dangerous  and  wide-spread  schism  healed 
and  a  great  triumph  won  by  the  conciliatory  temper  and 
wise  clemency  of  Leo  XIII. 

In  the  public  consistory  of  December  11,  1880,  the  Pope 
was  happily  inspired  to  reward  the  patriarch,  Monsignor 
Hassun,  by  giving  him  the  Roman  purple.  The  first  Ori- 
ental ever  created  cardinal  was  the  illustrious  Greek  scholar 
Bessarion,  whom  Eugenius  IV.  raised  to  the  purple  after 
the  Council  of  Florence  (1439-1442).  So,  after  an  interval 
of  nearly  four  centuries  and  a  half,  the  same  distinction  was 
granted  to  an  Armenian.  There  was  great  rejoicing  in  Con- 
stantinople. The  sultan  felt  the  promotion  as  a  personal 
compliment.  Everything  in  his  empire  thus  promised  well 
for  Catholicism. 

But  Leo  XIII.,  seeing  how  much  could  be  done  for 
Christianity  through  the  Armenian  nation,  placed  in  the 
very  heart  of  Asia  Minor,  carried  out  at  once,  regardless 
of  his  own  poverty,  the  noble  idea  of  Gregory  XIII.,  who 
had  decreed  the  foundation  of  a  college  for  the  Armenians 
in  Rome,  as  he  had  for  the  Greeks,  but  was  prevented  by 
death  from  carrying  out  his  purpose  in  this  latter  respect. 

On  March  I,  1881,  he  issued  the  bull  Benigna  hoininnm 
parcns  Ecclesia,  founding  a  special  college  for  the  Armeni- 
ans. .The  bull  is  one  of  the  most  beautiful  and  eloquent 
compositions  which  have  come  from  the  pen  of  Joachim 
Pecci. 

The  college  is  now  in  full  operation. 

But  the  Pontiff,  two  years  before,  had  sent  among  the 
Armenians  a  colony  of  Jesuits  to  open  a  college  there,  and 
another  of  Christian  Brothers  to  establish  popular  schools. 
Both  are  prosperous  beyond  the  hopes  of  the  founders. 

The  Chaldeans  were  not  neglected  in  this  respect.  The 
Holy  Father  sent  to  the  patriarch,  Monsignor  Abolionan, 


COLLEGES  AND  SEMINARIES  FOR  THE  EAST.       397 

a  colony  of  learned  Dominicans,  who  have  now  a  flourish- 
ing seminary  at  Mossoul,  on  the  banks  of  the  Tigris,  at  the 
very  seat  of  the  ancient  Babylonian  power  and  civilization. 
To  this  seminary  flock  the  Chaldean  youth  from  every  part 
of  Mesopotamia.  The  Roman  official  journals,  as  this  page 
is  written,  are  full  of  the  most  cheering  accounts  from  this 
new  school,  this  other  advanced  post  of  Christianity  and 
civilization,  planted  by  Leo  XIII.  near  the  frontiers  of  the 
Persian  Empire,  at  the  mouth  of  the  Persian  Gulf,  and  in 
the  birthplace  of  Heber,  of  Abraham  and  Sarah. 

NOTE. — This  is  the  proper  place  to  mention  one  of  the  grandest  pro- 
jects of  Leo  XIII. — that,  namely,  of  creating  two  great  central  schools,  one 
in  Athens  and  the  other  in  Constantinople.  For  that  he  needs  and  should 
obtain  the  generous  support  of  the  entire  Catholic  world. 


CHAPTER   XXIV. 

LEO  XIII.  AND  THE  EASTERN  PEOPLES.  —  II.   PERSIA,  CHINA, 

AND  JAPAN. 


Armenian  students  of  the  Propaganda,  like  Car- 
dinal  Hassun,  were  the  men  who  since  the  sixteenth 
century  had  kept  the  faith  alive  among  their  fellow-country- 
men throughout  the  Turkish  Empire.  They  were  also  anx- 
ious to  spread  it  among  their  Mussulman  neighbors.  But, 
even  had  this  not  been  a  most  perilous  kind  of  proselytism, 
it  was  not  a  very  promising  one  in  itself. 

The  old  Moslem  populations  away  from  the  great  cities 
are  simple  folk,  but  sincere  and  steady  believers  in  Allah  ; 
and  in  their  conception  Allah  is  the  one,  true,  living  God, 
the  God  of  Abraham,  whom  all  Christians  adore.  Of  the 
extravagances  or  contradictions  of  the  Koran  or  of  its  com- 
mentators they  know  or  care  little  or  nothing.  They  are 
not  to  be  moved  from  their  ancestral  faith  by  the  ignorant 
and  tepid  Christians  who  are  in  their  midst.  It  is  only  when 
these  shall  have  been  instructed  and  lifted  up  by  their 
clergy  to  a  higher  intellectual  and  moral  level  that  the  ex- 
amples of  superior  virtue  first  can  impress  these  honest 
country-folk  and  open  the  way  to  instruction. 

I.  The  Emperor  of  Persia,  Nasr-ed-Din  Shah,  is  a  man 
of  progress,  liberal  and  large-minded.  During  his  tour 
through  Europe  newspaper  reporters  were  more  eager  to 
collect  all  the  wretched  gossip  they  could  pick  up  here  and 
there  from  hotel  servants  and  valets  about  the  royal  travel- 
ler's personal  habits  and  peculiarities  than  to  obtain  serious 
information  about  his  many  great  qualities.  That  he  made 
up  his  mind  to  travel  at  all  outside  of  his  own  dominions 
and  in  Christir.n  countries,  and  that  for  the  avowed  purpose 
of  observing  what  he  saw  and  benefiting  thereby  his  own 
people,  proves  that  he  is  a  man  of  no  ordinary  character. 

398 


TOLERATION  OF    THE   PERSIAN  RULERS.  399 

He  is  sincerely  desirous  of  improving  in  every  way  he 
can  the  condition  of  his  country.  But  its  central  position 
on  the  Asiatic  continent,  and  its  remoteness  from  the  ordi- 
nary highways  of  commerce  and  civilization,  render  im- 
provement a  matter  of  great  difficulty. 

The  shah  is  quite  awake  to  the  ambitious  designs  of 
Russia,  and  so  far  he  has  had  the  skill  to  avoid  a  collision 
with  that  power. 

From  his  tour  through  Europe  he  has  also  brought  back 
a  great  spirit  of  toleration  toward  Christians ;  and  this  he 
has  communicated  to  his  three  sons,  who  govern  the  empire 
under  him. 

The  oldest  of  these,  Prince  Zel-el-Sultan,  is  governor  of 
the  central  provinces,  whose  capital  is  Ispahan.  He  is  not 
the  presumptive  heir  to  the  throne,  because  his  mother  was 
of  inferior  rank.  But  he  is  a  man  of  rare  intelligence.  His 
confidant  and  counsellor  is  Baghi-Khan,  rector  of  the  Uni- 
versity of  Ispahan,  a  man  of  culture  and  exceedingly  favor- 
able to  the  Christians.  Both  the  prince  and  himself  first 
contracted  a  warm  friendship  for  Father  Arakelian,  the  su- 
perior of  the  Armenian  Catholics,  and  afterwards  with  Fa- 
ther Pascal,  the  local  superior  of  the  French  Lazarists,  to 
whose  care  the  vicariate-apostolic  of  Persia  is  entrusted. 
Prince  Zel-el-Sultan  has  shown  himself  a  kind  protector  to 
the  Catholic  missionaries  and  their  people. 

The  third  or  youngest  son,  Prince  Naib  Sultaneh,  is 
Minister  of  War  and  governor  of  the  province  of  Teheran, 
with  his  residence  in  that  city.  He  is  no  less  tolerant  and 
liberal,  and  has  done  much  to  protect  and  help  the  mis- 
sionaries. 

The  second  son,  who  bears  the  title  of  Wali-Ahed,  is  the 
heir  presumptive.  He  is  the  governor  of  the  important 
frontier  province  of  Azerbaijan,  and  is  rather  reserved  and 
retiring,  probably  on  account  of  the  greater  popularity  of 
his  two  brothers. 

The  delegate-apostolic  in  Persia  is  also  a  Lazarist,  Mon- 
signor  Thomas,  Archbishop  of  Adrianopolis,  who  was  ap- 
pointed by  Leo  XIII.  in  1883.  Things  prospered  so  well 


4<X>  LIFE  OJ-'  LEO  XIII. 

with  him,  his  brother-Lazarists,  and  the  Catholic  Armenian 
community  in  Persia,  thanks  to  the  protection  afforded  them 
by  the  shah  and  his  sons,  that  the  delegate  reported  most 
favorably  to  the  Holy  See.  Thereupon  Leo  XIII.,  pursu- 
ing his  wonted  wise  policy,  sent  to  the  two  princes  the  insig- 
nia of  Grand  Cross  of  the  Order  of  Pius  IX.  This  was  an- 
other stroke  of  good  statesmanship,  destined  to  secure  Arch- 
bishop Thomas  and  his  brother  Lazarists,  who  cultivate  that 
field  so  successfully,  a  great  increase  of  favor  with  the  royal 
family  and  all  persons  in  power. 

The  presentation  of  the  insignia  of  the  Pontifical  Order 
took  place  with  the  greatest  solemnity  at  Teheran  on  the 
2d  and  the  $th  of  March,  1886. 

Archbishop  Thomas,  the  delegate,  was  unable,  through 
ill-health  and  his  distance  from  the  capital,  to  perform  the 
ceremony  in  person,  but  delegated  one  of  his  brother- 
missionaries,  Rev.  M.  Domergue,  to  present  the  decorations 
in  his  stead.  The  tidings  of  the  distinction  bestowed  on  the 
two  imperial  princes  by  the  Supreme  Chief  of  the  Catholic 
religion  had  created  quite  a  stir  among  the  people  of  Tehe- 
ran. The  princes  themselves  expressed  their  extreme  grati- 
fication, and  were  impatient  to  wear  their  new  honors.  So 
there  was  a  great  crowd  at  the  palace  on  the  2d  of  March 
when  the  French  ambassador,  M.  Souhaid,  took  Father  Do- 
mergue in  his  state  carriage,  escorted  by  a  numerous  com- 
pany of  armed  attendants.  The  East  is  the  country  for 
ceremony,  and  everything  here  was  done  in  the  most  stately 
form.  The  Prince  Na'ib  Sultanch  was  in  full  dress  and  sur- 
rounded by 'a  splendid  court.  He  received  the  decoration 
from  the  hand  of  Father  Domergue,  who  made  him  a  very 
happy  speech,  and  at  once  placed  the  star  on  his  breast,  ex- 
pressing his  profound  gratitude  to  the  Holy  Father,  and 
promising  to  write  himself  to  His  Holiness. 

On  the  5th  Prince  Zel-el-Sultan  received  the  insignia 
with  the  same  ceremony,  and  replied  in  a  set  speech.  His 
august  father,  he  said,  had  instructed  him  to  treat  all  his 
subjects  justly  without  any  distinction  of  creed.  He  hail 
found  the  Catholics  a  hard-working,  peaceful,  law-abiding, 


402  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

and  loyal  people ;  expressed  his  admiration  for  Father  Pas- 
cal, the  superior  of  the  mission  in  his  province,  and  said' 
that  he  was  proud  to  wear  the  distinction  sent  him,  would 
write  to  His  Holiness  to  express  his  gratitude,  and  hoped 
some  day  to  visit  Rome  and  pay  his  homage  in  person  to 
the  Pope. 

These  events  are  only  forerunners  of  greater  success. 
Persia  is  destined  to  play  a  great  part  in  the  Eastern 
drama,  whose  first  acts  are  already  passing  beneath  our  eyes.. 
If  Christian  civilization — not  the  mere  material  civilization, 
but  the  culture  of  the  mind,  and  the  elevation  of  the  heart 
to  nobler  virtues  and  nobler  aims,  and  the  refining  of  life 
and  manners — could  only  prepare  the  people  to  receive  the 
improvements  in  the  mechanical  and  industrial  arts  made 
by  Christian  nations,  and  to  guard  against  the  defects  and 
dangers  which  we  ourselves  acknowledge  and  deplore,  then-: 
ancient  Iran  might  take  a  proud  place  in  Asia. 

2.  But  Leo  XIII. 's  keen  and  practical  judgment  also 
saw  the  necessity  of  establishing  a  friendly  intercourse  be- 
tween the  courts  of  Pekin  and  Tokio  and  the  Vatican.  He 
therefore  resolved  to  place  himself  in  direct  personal  rela- 
tions with  the  two  great  emperors  of  the  far  East. 

On  February  I,  1885,  Leo  XIII.  wrote  to  the  Emperor 
of  China  for  the  purpose  of  warding  off  from  the  Christians 
of  the  Celestial  Empire  the  outbursts  of  popular  wrath 
which  had  already  produced  bloodshed  in  more  than  one 
city.  The  invasion  of  Tonquin  by  a  French  army,  and  the 
progress  of  that  power  in  Cochin  China,  had  excited  the 
fiercest  national  hatred  against  all  foreigners,  and  threat- 
ened to  cause  everywhere  an  indiscriminate  massacre  of 
Christians. 

"  We  follow  the  example  of  our  predecessors,"  the  Pope 
writes,  "  who  have  more  than  once  besought  the  protection 
of  your  powerful  ancestors  in  favor  of  the  European  mission- 
aries and  their  flocks.  We  are  led  to  hope  much  from  your 
Majesty  in  this,  from  the  fact  that,  in  spite  of  the  breaking 
out  of  hostilities,  your  Majesty  has  given  many  evidences  of 
kindly  feeling  toward  Christians.  We  were  informed  that 


LETTER  TO  THE  EMPEROR  OF  CHINA.  403 

from  the  beginning  of  the  war  you  had  given  orders  forbid- 
ding all  to  trouble  the  Christians  in  any  way,  and  not  even 
to  molest  the  French  missionaries.  In  that  your  Majesty 
has  shown  a  spirit  of  justice  and  humanity  worthy  of  a  great 
sovereign.  We  acknowledge  this  all  the  more  gladly  that  all 
the  priests  of  European  nationality  who  are  in  your  Ma- 
jesty's empire  have  been  sent  thither  by  the  Roman  Pontiffs, 
from  whom  they  hold  their  mission,  their  office,  their  in- 
structions, and  all  the  spiritual  authority  they  exercise. 

"  These  missionaries  do  not  belong  to  any  one  single  na- 
tion ;  Italy,  Belgium,  Holland,  Spain,  and  Germany  claim 
each  a  large  number  of  missionaries  who  labor  in  ten  of  the 
provinces  of  your  Majesty's  vast  empire.  The  priests  of  the 
Society  of  Jesus  and  of  the  Society  of  Foreign  Missions  who 
exercise  their  ministry  in  the  other  provinces  belong  to 
divers  nationalities. 

"  This  is  the  special  characteristic  of  the  Christian  religion  : 
it  has  not  been  founded  for  one  people  in  particular,  but  for 
all ;  and  it  receives  them  all  into  the  fellowship  of  a  common 
brotherly  love,  without  any  distinction  of  race  or  of  country." 

The  Pope  then  states  clearly  and  briefly  the  great  truth 
on  which  he  insists  so  strongly  and  so  unvaryingly  in  his 
letters  to  the  emperors  of  Europe  as  well  as  to  those  of 
Asia,  in  his  communications  with  the  republics  of  the  New 
World  as  well  as  with  those  of  the  Old  : 

"  The  labors  of  those  who  preach  the  Gospel  are  of  the 
very  greatest  utility  to  states  themselves.  For  they  are  en- 
joined to  abstain  from  meddling  in  mere  political  affairs, 
and  to  bestow  all  their  zeal  in  preaching  and  cultivating 
among  the  people  the  wisdom  of  Christ.  Now,  the  chief 
precepts  of  that  wisdom  are,  to  fear  God  and  to  have  in  all 
things  a  supreme  reverence  for  justice.  Hence  it  follows 
that  we  must  be  submissive  to  the  magistrates,  obey  the 
laws,  honor  the  king,  not  through  fear  only,  but  for  con- 
science' sake.  Than  these  virtues  nothing  can  be  more 
efficacious  to  keep  the  multitude  within  the  bounds  of  duty 
and  to  secure  the  public  safety."  * 

*  "  Acta,"  v.  10-12. 


404  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

The  Holy  Father  then  appeals  to  the  emperor,  asking 
him  whether  the  missionaries  have  not  at  all  times  been 
most  exemplary  in  obeying  the  laws  of  the  empire,  as  well 
as  most  efficient  in  procuring  the  public  welfare. 

The  action  of  the  Holy  Father  in  opening  direct  com- 
munication with  the  Emperor  of  China  has  given  rise  to 
some  untoward  discussions  in  the  French  and  Italian  press. 
Catholic  France,  up  to  the  present  time,  has  deemed  that 
both  her  interest  and  her  national  pride  were  involved  in 
standing  forth  in  China  as  the  protector  of  the  Catholic 
missions.  All  negotiations  between  the  Holy  See  and  the 
court  of  Pekin  were  carried  on  through  the  French  ambas- 
sador. That  the  Pope  should  himself  write  directly  to  the 
emperor  was  construed  by  some  officious  public  journals  as 
at  least  a  slight  on  the  government  of  the  French  Republic. 
Others  went  further  and  said  that  Prince  Bismarck  had 
urged  the  Holy  Father  to  make  himself  in  the  East  quite 
independent  of  the  now  worthless  French  protectorate. 
These  discussions,  and  the  national  feelings  to  which  they 
appeal,  were  most  untimely  and  unfortunate.  Happening 
just  when  Leo  XIII.  was  bestowing  on  Prince  Bismarck  a 
high  mark  of  pontifical  gratitude  at  the  happy  conclusion  of 
the  mediation  between  Germany  and  Spain,  and  coinciding 
with  the  strong  personal  efforts  of  the  German  chancellor 
to  end  the  Kulturkampf  and  bring  about  a  perfect  religious 
peace  in  Prussia,  the  sensitive  national  feeling  in  France 
was  quick  to  take  alarm,  to  accept  false  statements,  and  to 
resent  anything  like  a  concordant  action  in  China  of  the 
Holy  See  and  the  German  chancery. 

But  the  cloud  which  gathered,  borne  by  the  winds  of 
misrepresentation,  has  vanished  before  the  light  of  truth. 
The  Pope  is  left  free  to  follow  in  the  East  as  well  as  in  the 
West  the  promptings  of  his  own  well-directed  genius. 

3.  The  letter  of  Leo  XIII.  to  the  Emperor  of  Japan  was 
an  act  of  that  same  far-seeing  policy.  The  Pope  knew  what 
deep  roots  the  Catholic  religion  had  left  in  Japan  when 
Taico-Sama  deluged  the  land  with  the  blood  of  so  many 
thousands  of  martyrs.  It  was  found  during  the  late  perse- 


LETTER  TO  THE  EMPEROR  OF  JAPAN.  405 

cutions  among  the  Christians  *  that  Catholicity  had  survived 
in  many  places,  although  no  priest  could  be  found  to  min- 
ister to  its  professors.  One  of  the  vicars-apostolic  officially 
states  that  the  Catholics  in  his  district  number  at  least  25,- 
ooo.  In  the  Missionary  Herald,  the  organ  of  the  American 
Protestant  Board  of  Foreign  Missions,  f  is  published  a  letter 
from  Rev.  J.  H.  Pettee,  of  Okogama,  entitled  "A  New  Peril 
in  Japan,"  and  sounding  a  loud  note  of  alarm  about  the 
manifest  leaning  of  the  Japanese  nation  toward  Catholicism. 
The  writer  says  there  is  a  strong  movement  among  local 
officials  favoring  the  acceptance  of  the  Roman  Catholic 
religion.  The  most  progressive  secular  paper  in  the  king- 
dom has  openly  advocated  baptizing  the  emperor  and  a  few 
of  the  nobles,  in  order  that  Japan  may  be  considered  a 
Christian  nation. 

We  give  these  signs  of  the  times  in  Japan  as  observed 
and  noted  by  an  opponent  of  Catholicity,  to  enable  the 
reader  to  appreciate  some  at  least  of  the  circumstances 
under  which  Leo  XIII.  wrote  his  letter  of  May  13,  1885,  to 
the  mikado. 

"  Great  as  is  the  distance  in  space  which  separates  us," 
the  letter  begins,  "  we  have  heard  of  all  that  your  Majesty  is 
accomplishing  in  order  to  increase  the  prosperity  of  your 
states.  What  your  Majesty  has  done  to  improve  the  civil 
administration  and  to  raise  the  level  of  public  morality  are 
not  only  evidences  of  your  provident  forethought,  but  most 
worthy  of  the  commendation  of  all  men  who  are  desirous  of 
seeing  nations  make  a  true  progress  in  prosperity  and  in  the 
interchange  of  all  the  best  fruits  of  civilization.  For  it  is 
gentleness  and  urbanity  of  manners  which  predispose  peo- 
ples to  listen  to  the  teachings  of  wisdom  and  to  receive  the 
light  of  truth.  This  is  why  we  beseech  your  Majesty  to  ac- 
cept with  your  great  kindness  the  assurances  we  give  you  of 
our  sincere  affection. 

"  Indeed,  it  is  gratitude  which  prompts  us  to  write  to 

*  See  article   "Missions  (Catholic)''  in   last  edition  of  the  American 
Cyclopedia  (Appleton's). 
f  April,  i836. 


.406  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

your  Majesty.  The  kindly  interest  which  you  may  take  in 
•every  one  of  the  missionaries  and  Christians  in  your  wide 
empire  we  shall  take  as  shown  to  ourselves  personally.  We 
know  from  their  own  testimony  how  gracious  and  kind  your 
Majesty  has  been  to  them. 

"  You  could  not,  assuredly,  do  anything  more  in  con- 
formity with  the  principles  of  justice  nor  more  conducive  to 
the  welfare  of  your  states.  For  you  can  hope  to  find  in  the 
Catholic  religion  no  little  help  toward  promoting  and  secur- 
ing their  welfare. 

"  For  the  foundation  of  all  states  is  justice,  and  there  is 
not  one  duty  which  derives  from  it  that  is  not  made  obliga- 
tory for  Christians. 

"  This  is  why  all  who  are  true  Christians  are  not  men  in- 
fluenced by  the  fear  of  punishment,  but  rather  by  the  voice 
of  conscience,  in  reverencing  the  majesty  of  the  sovereign, 
in  obeying  the  laws,  in  seeking  to  promote  only  the  public 
peace  and  honor.  This  also  is  the  reason  why  we  so  ar- 
dently desire  that  your  Majesty  should  bestow  on  Christians 
the  greatest  possible  measure  of  freedom,  and  that  you 
should  extend  to  their  establishments  your  continued  favor 
and  protection." 

As  Leo  XIII.  wrote  to  these  great  potentates  of  the 
most  ancient  empires  in  the  world,  so  wrote  he  to  the  king 
of  the  Shoa  Gallas  in  Abyssinia,  who,  in  the  first  years  of 
the  Pope's  Pontificate,  favored  the  missionaries  among  his 
people.  Since  then,  and  as  we  write,  this  prince's  suzerain, 
the  King  of  Abyssinia,  has  compelled  him  to  adopt  a  differ- 
ent policy.  The  English  wars  in  Upper  Egypt  and  the  Ital- 
ian expedition  to  Massowah  have,  not  unreasonably,  alarmed 
and  irritated  both  Abyssinians  and  Gallas.  The  expeditions 
of  European  powers,  when  undertaken  from  purely  commer- 
cial or  ambitious  motives,  are  not  conducive  to  the  interests 
of  Christian  civilization.  Italy  has  started  on  her  new  na- 
tional career  with  the  openly  avowed  purpose  of  doing  with- 
out God  and  of  seeking  none  of  the  interests  of  religion. 
Even  should  the  new  kingdom  last  a  century,  we  should 
be  curious  to  peep  into  the  future  and  know  how  many  col- 


RELIGION  CANNOT  SAFELY  BE  IGNORED.  407 

•onies  she  may  plant  in  this  way  and  how  they  are  likely  to 
prosper. 

Not  so  did  France,  and  Portugal,  and  Spain,  and  England 
herself  attempt  to  leave  God  and  all  religion  out  of  their  cal- 
culations when  they  planted  their  flag  and  settled  their  colo- 
nies along  the  shores  of  the  Indian,  the  Pacific,  and  the  At- 
lantic oceans. 

Leo  XIII. 's  recommendation  to  nations  and  their  rulers, 
lx>th  in  their  home  and  in  their  colonial  policy,  is  that  of  the 
Master:  "Seek  ye  first  the  kingdom  of  God  and  His  justice, 
.and  all  the  rest  shall  be  given  to  you  over  and  above." 


CHAPTER   XXV. 

LEO  XIII.  AND  GREAT  BRITAIN — RESTORATION  OF  THE 
SCOTCH  HIERARCHY — SETTLEMENT  OF  DISPUTES  BE- 
TWEEN THE  BISHOPS  AND  REGULARS. 

HEN  one  reflects  on  the  persecutions  to  which  the 
Church  has  been  subject  in  countries  which  were 
once  the  glory  of  the  Christian  name ;  on  the  many  restric- 
tions the  governments  in  these  same  countries  place  on  the 
liberty  of  the  bishops  in  governing  their  flocks,  and  on  the 
very  freedom  of  the  Holy  See  in  communicating  with  the 
bishops  and  exercising  over  the  local  churches  the  supreme 
jurisdiction  essential  to  the  pontifical  office,  it  is  not  to  be 
wondered  that  both  Leo  XIII.  and  his  predecessors  looked 
with  grateful  affection  to  Great  Britain  and  the  United 
States,  where  so  much  of  true  liberty  is  allowed  to  the 
Church,  to  the  Popes,  and  to  the  clergy  of  every  rank. 

The  establishment  of  a  regular  English  hierarchy  by 
Pius  IX.  gave,  it  is  true,  occasion  for  an  outbreak  of  the  old 
anti-Papal  and  anti-Catholic  spirit.  It  was  only  a  passing 
storm,  however.  Public  opinion  was  soon  enlightened  on 
the  real  nature  of  this  restoration,  and  people  were  ashamed 
of  having  been  hurried  along  by  the  current  of  blind  popular 
prejudice  into  expressing  sentiments  unjustified  by  truth  or 
reason  or  religion,  or  into  acts  more  blameworthy  still. 

When  the  last  mutterings  of  this  sudden  tempest  had 
died  away  it  was  found  that  the  Pope  had  committed  no 
aggression  on  the  constitutional  prerogatives  of  the  crown  or 
the  legislature,  and  that  the  cardinal -archbishop  of  West- 
minster and  his  brother-bishops  were  the  most  devoted  of 
subjects,  an  ornament  to  their  country  by  their  learning, 
their  eloquence,  and  their  virtues,  and  with  their  faithful 
flocks  one  of  the  strongest  bulwarks  of  law,  order,  liberty, 
morality,  and  religion. 


RE  VIVAL  OF  THE  CHURCH  IN  GREA  T  BRITAIN.     409 

And  so  from  1850  to  1877  the  Catholic  Church  in  Eng- 
land grew  and  prospered.  Colleges,  convents,  monasteries, 
stately  cathedrals,  beautiful  parochial  churches  with  their 
schools,  hospitals,  orphan  asylums,  homes  for  the  aged,  pro- 
tectories for  the  young,  and  refuges  for  the  fallen,  sprang 
up  with  surprising  rapidity.  Every  one  of  the  newly  erected 
dioceses  became  a  centre  of  extraordinary  religious  activity, 
and  it  was  soon  discovered  even  by  the  bitter  opponents  of 
Catholicism  that  the  revival  and  the  progress  of  the  ancient 
faith  of  Alfred  and  Edward  the  Confessor,  of  St.  Bede  and 
St.  Dunstan,  boded  nothing  but  good  to  the  constitution 
which  was  the  growth  of  the  old  Catholic  ages,  or  to  that 
spirit  of  manly  liberty  which  had  written  Magna  Charta  with 
a  Catholic  pen,  or  to  the  progress  of  science  and  civilization 
of  which  Roger  Bacon  had  been  the  prophet  and  Cardinal 
Wiseman  was  then  the  exponent. 

So,  although  in  political  life,  in  the  parliamentary  strug- 
gles of  the  present  century,  English  Catholics  have  never 
exercised  or  seemingly  cared  to  exercise  any  controlling  ac- 
tion or  influence,  Catholic  life  all  over  the  land,  like  a  beauti- 
ful and  vigorous  undergrowth  in  one  of  its  own  forests,  was 
spreading  and  waxing  strong,  and  rising  steadily  and  reach- 
ing upward  to  the  air  and  the  sunlight.  God's  appointed 
time  would  come  for  its  full  stature. 

In  Scotland,  too,  that  land  which  Scott's  magic  pen  has 
rendered  classical  the  wide  world  over,  the  wild,  beautiful, 
heroic  land  of  St.  Margaret  and  her  husband,  Malcolm  Can- 
more,  and  their  son,  St.  David,  the  old  faith  was  also  spread- 
ing and  growing.  It  had  held  its  ground  invincibly  in  more 
than  one  part  of  the  ancient  kingdom,  as  among  the  Mac- 
Donalds  and  the  Frazers ;  and  although  these  clans,  whose 
romantic  history  has  never  been  written,  were  forced  to  mi- 
grate to  Nova  Scotia,  Prince  Edward's  Island,  and  Upper 
Canada,  the  remnants  which  clung  to  the  native  soil,  like 
their  own  mountain  pine  and  oak,  were  germs  reserved  for 
the  glorious  revival  now  beginning.  Other  germs,  from  a 
kindred  and  well-tried  stock  within  view  of  their  southern 
and  western  shores,  the  storm-winds  of  misfortune  had  borne 


410  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

along  the  track  once  followed  by  Columbkille's  bark,  and 
they  fell  on  the  Caledonian  shores,  to  take  root  there,  and 
blossom,  and  bear  fruit,  also  in  God's  good  time. 

And  time  had  been,  long  ages  ago,  when  the  apostles 
from  green  Erin  were  welcome  on  every  inch  of  the  soil  of 
Great  Britain,  and  when  Britain's  greatest  and  best,  like 
Dunstan  himself,  were  wont  to  repair  to  the  schools  of 
Erin.  How  hospitably  they  were  received  and  entertained 
there  St.  Bede  himself  has  attested.  Religion  and  its  chari- 
ties, the  knowledge  of  Christ  and  the  civilization  which 
sprang  from  it,  drew  the  islands  together  and  all  hearts 
within  them.  Though  the  sea  ran  as  now  between  them, 
brotherly  love  bridged  it  over.  Will  the  faith  which  the 
countrymen  of  Columbkille  carry  with  them  across  the 
Channel,  hidden,  as  it  were,  in  the  folds  of  their  garments, 
not  grow  up  on  the  land,  in  its  length  and  breadth,  as  the 
promise  of  the  coming  age  when  that  faith  will  unite  all 
once  more,  as  in  the  days  of  Bede  and  Dunstan,  and  the 
bitter,  unnatural  passions  of  to-day  will  have  passed  for  ever, 
as  passes  the  violent  delirium  of  a  fevered  brain  ? 

It  surely  is  the  hope  of  Leo  XIII.  It  is  the  hope  of 
every  man  and  woman  who  loves  Christ,  and  prays  for  a 
greater  triumph  for  His  Gospel  than  in  the  days  of  Con- 
stantine. 

With  what  glad  avidity  Leo  XIII.  seized  upon  the  op- 
portunity offered  him  by  the  uncompleted  work  of  Pius 
IX.  to  do  for  Scotland  what  the  latter  had  done  for  Eng- 
land— give  her  back  her  episcopal  hierarchy !  One  cannot 
help  feeling,  after  weighing  attentively  the  heartfelt  expres- 
sions which  he  uses  both  in  the  bull  Ex  Supremo  Apostula- 
tus  apice  and  in  his  first  consistorial  allocution,  that  the  Pon- 
tiff is  drawn  by  a  special  affection  toward  these  Western 
isles,  from  whose  teeming  bosom  have  gone  forth  the  found- 
ers of  mighty  empires  beyond  the  seas — the  founders  as  well 
of  that  new  and  greater  Christendom  which  is  to  compensate 
the  Church  for  the  decay  of  faith  nearer  home. 

This  is  a  happy  augury  for  Leo  XIII.,  that  the  first 
solemn  act  of  his  Pontificate  should  be  to  build  up  again 


RESTORATION  OF  THE  HIERARCHY  IN  SCOTLAND.     41  I 

"the  ecclesiastical  edifice  at  which  St.  Margaret  and  her  royal 
husband  had  labored  so  many  ages  before. 

"  From  the  highest  summit  of  the  apostolic  dignity  " — so 
he  begins — "  to  which,  by  no  merit  of  our  own,  but  by  the 
disposition  of  the  Divine  Goodness,  we  were  lately  raised, 
the  Roman  Pontiffs  who  preceded  us  were  wont  unceasingly 
to  survey,  as  from  the  top  of  a  mountain,  every  portion  of 
the  field  of  the  Lord,  so  as  to  discover*whatever  was  most 
needful  to  the  actual  condition,  the  beauty,  and  the  sta- 
bility of  all  the  churches;  wherefore  their  first  and  princi- 
pal solicitude  was,  in  proportion  to  the  aid  given  them 
from  on  high,  either  to  erect  episcopal  sees  all  over  the 
world  or  to  recall  to  life  such  as  had  perished  through  the 
misfortunes  of  other  times.  For  as  it  is  the  Holy  Ghost 
who  hath  established  bishops  to  rule  the  Church  of  God, 
therefore,  as  soon  as  the  state  of  our  holy  religion  in  any 
country  permits  the  establishment  or  the  restoration  there 
of  episcopal  government,  it  is  proper  that  all  the  benefits 
which  naturally  flow  from  such  a  divinely  constituted  order 
of  things  should  be  at  once  conferred  on  that  country. 

"  Now,  our  predecessor  of  blessed  memory,  Pius  IX., 
whose  death  a  few  days  ago  we  all  still  deplore,  having 
noticed  at  the  very  beginning  of  his  Pontificate  the  pro- 
gress made  by  the  Catholic  missions  in  the  prosperous  king- 
dom of  England — a  progress  permitting  the  restoration  of 
the  regular  form  of  Church  government  therein  as  it  exists 
among  other  Catholic  peoples — gave  back  to  the  English 
their  regular  episcopal  hierarchy.  .  .  .  And  not  long  there- 
after, seeing  that  Holland  and  Brabant  were  in  a  condition 

o 

to  enjoy  the  same  benefits,  he  delayed  not  to  restore  to 
them  also  their  episcopal  hierarchy.  .  .  . 

"  Passing  over  the  re-establishment  of  the  patriarchate  of 
Jerusalem,  all  these  restorations  were  evidently  acts  of  wise 
forethought ;  for  their  results,  with  God's  blessing,  fully  cor- 
responded to  the  expectations  of  the  Holy  See,  for  every- 
body knows  what  benefit  the  Catholic  Church  in  all  these 
cases  derived  from  the  restoration  of  the  episcopal  hier- 
archy. 


4  I  2  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

"  It  pained  the  loving  heart  of  that  good  Pope  that  Scot- 
land could  not  then  share  in  the  common  benefit.  And  his 
fatherly  pain  was  increased  by  the  reflection  that  Catholi- 
cism in  former  times  had  made  such  fruitful  progress  in 
Scotland.  All  who  know  Church  history  are  aware  that  the 
light  of  the  Gospel  shone  there  at  an  early  period.  For,  to 
pass  over  what  tradition  says  of  the  apostolic  missions  sent 
in  ancient  times  to*  that  kingdom,  we  read  of  St.  Ninian 
having  preached  there  at  the  close  of  the  fourth  century, 
after  having,  as  the  Venerable  Bede  testifies,  obtained  in 
Rome  the  gift  of  faith  and  the  knowledge  of  its  mysteries ; 
and  of  St.  Palladius,  a  deacon  of  the  Roman  Church,  who 
followed  Ninian  in  the  fifth  century,  both  of  them  being 
consecrated  bishops.  Then  there  was  the  Abbot  St.  Co- 
lumba,  who  landed  there  in  the  sixth  century,  and  built  a 
monastery  which  was  the  parent  of  many  others. 

"  And  although  from  the  middle  of  the  eighth  to  the 
eleventh  century  historical  documents  tell  us  almost  nothing 
about  the  ecclesiastical  condition  of  Scotland,  still  it  is  a 
tradition  well  remembered  that  many  bishops  lived  there, 
though  some  of  them  had  no  fixed  sees.  But  after  the  ac- 
cession of  Malcolm  III.  in  1057,  at  the  instance  of  his  queen, 
St.  Margaret,  he  set  about  restoring  and  extending  the  Chris- 
tian religion,  which  had  suffered  no  little  injury  both  from 
the  incursions  of  foreign  nations*  and  from  intestine  politi- 
cal revolutions.  The  remains,  still  extant,  of  church  edifices, 
monasteries,  and  other  religious  structures  bear  splendid  tes- 
timony to  the  piety  of  the  ancient  Scots. 

"  Hut,  to  come  to  what  more  especially  relates  to  our 
subject,  it  is  certain  that  in  the  fifteenth  century  the  epis- 
copal sees  had  so  increased  as  to  number  thirteen  in  ail- 
namely,  St.  Andrew's,  Glasgow,  Dunkeld,  Aberdeen,  Moray, 
Brechen,  Dunblane,  Ross  and  Caithness,  Candida  Casa  or 
Whithorn,  Lismore,  and  Sodor  or  the  Isles,  and  the  Or- 
cades — all  of  which  were  immediately  subject  to  this  Apos- 
tolic See.  It  is  also  certain — a  circumstance  of  which  the 

*  Danes  and  Northmen. 


THE  PONTIFF'S  AFFECTION  FOR  SCOTLAND.         413 

Scotch  are  justly  proud — that  the  Roman  Pontiffs  took  the 
kingdom  of  Scotland  under  their  special  protection  and 
bestowed  on  these  churches  marks  of  peculiar  favor." 

The  Pontiff  then  sketches  the  hierarchical  changes  in  the 
Scottish  churches  down  to  the  Reformation,  with  the  mea- 
sures taken  during  the  next  three  centuries  to  provide  for 
the  spiritual  needs  of  the  scattered  and  persecuted  Catho- 
lics. 

In    1877,    during   the    Episcopal    Jubilee    of    Pius    IX., 

Bishop  Strain,  at  the  head  of  a  distinguished  band  of  Scotch 
Catholics,  petitioned  for  the  restoration  of  the  hierarchy — a 
thing  which  the  venerable  Pope  was  most  anxious  to  grant. 
He  committed  to  the  Congregation  of  Propaganda  the  la- 
bor of  making  the  necessary  inquiries,  resolving  to  satisfy 
as  soon  as  possible  the  pious  wishes  of  his  Scotch  children. 
"  But,"  says  his  successor,  "  while  he  was  congratulating  him- 
self on  the  speedy  accomplishment  of  a  purpose  long  and 
fervently  entertained,  he  was  called  by  the  Just  Judge  to  his 
reward. 

"  What  our  predecessor,  therefore,  was  prevented  by 
death  from  doing,  God,  so  plentiful  in  mercy  and  glorious 
in  all  His  works,  hath  permitted  us  to  do,  in  order  that  we 
.should  inaugurate  by  a  happy  beginning  the  Pontificate 
accepted  with  fear  and  trembling  in  these  unhappy  times. 
Wherefore,  having  informed  ourselves  thoroughly  of  this  im- 
portant matter,  we  have  gladly  resolved  to  accomplish  forth- 
with what  Pius  IX.  had  already  decreed.  .  .  . 

"...  After  these  preliminaries,  of  our  own  accord,  with 
certain  knowledge,  and  by  the  authority  which  we  possess 
over  the  universal  Church,  to  the  greater  glory  of  Almighty 
God  and  the  exaltation  of  the  Catholic  faith,  we  constitute 
and  decree  that  in  the  kingdom  of  Scotland  the  hierarchy  of 
ordinary  bishops  be  hereby  recalled  to  life  in  accordance 
with  the  prescriptions  of  the  canons,  these  bishops  to  be 
named  from  their  sees,  which  by  this  our  constitution  we 
create  and  constitute  into  an  ecclesiastical  province.  .  .  ." 

All  through  this  memorable  document  there  are  passages 
in  which  the  Pontiff's  affection  for  Scotland  and  his  know- 


4 1 4  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

ledge  of  her  religious  glories  in  the  past  manifest  them- 
selves in  glowing  language. 

"  Remembering,"  he  says,  "  the  illustrious  memories  left 
behind  by  tbe  ancient  Church  of  St.  Andrew,  and  taking 
also  into  account  the  rank  of  this  capital  city,  as  well  as 
other  reasons,  we  cannot  help  calling  forth,  as  it  were  from 
the  tomb,  this  celebrated  see,  and  raising  it  or  restoring 
it  to  metropolitan  or  archiepiscopal  rank,  adding  to  it  the 
title  of  Edinburgh.  .  .  .  As  to  the  see  of  Glasgow,  con- 
sidering the  antiquity  of  that  city,  its  size  and  fame,  and 
having  especially  before  our  mind  the  flourishing  condition 
there  of  our  holy  religion,  and  that  Innocent  VIII.  had  be- 
stowed upon  it  archiepiscopal  privileges,  we  have  deemed 
it  most  befitting  to  give  to  its  bishop  the  archiepiscopal  title 
and  insignia,  as  we  do  by  these  presents.  .  .  . 

"  We  have  no  fear  but  that  the  new  bishops,  following  in 
the  footsteps  of  their  predecessors,  who  have  rendered  by 
their  own  worth  the  name  of  the  ancient  Church  of  Scotland 
glorious,  will  labor  with  all  their  might  to  make  the  Catholic 
name  more  glorious  still  in  that  country,  and  that  the  good 
of  souls  and  the  worship  of  God  shall  be  promoted  by  all 
possible  means." 

The  new  hierarchy  is  still  to  remain  subject  to  the  foster- 
ing care  of  the  Congregation  of  Propaganda,  to  whom  the 
bishops  are  bound  regularly  to  report. 

"  Let  the  bishops,"  he  says  further  on,  "  be  well  assured 
that  we  shall  ever  aid  them  willingly  with  our  apostolic 
authority,  bestowing  on  them  our  assistance  in  all  that  re- 
gards the  promotion  of  the  divine  honor  and  the  spiritual 
welfare  of  their  people.  .  .  .  And  inasmuch  as,  in  the  pre- 
sent circumstances,  the  faithful  in  Scotland  are  unable  to 
provide  sufficiently  and  becomingly  for  the  support  of  their 
clergy  and  the  needs  of  their  respective  churches,  we 
cherish  the  hope  that  our  beloved  children,  the  Scotch 
Catholics,  to  whose  most  urgent  solicitations  we  have  yield- 
ed readily  in  restoring  their  hierarchy,  will  continue  to  sup- 
ply with  even  a  more  liberal  generosity,  by  their  alms  and 
donations,  the  means  by  which  the  pastors  we  give  them 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  ST.  MARGARET  ABROAD.  415 

may  provide  for  the  restoration  of  the  bishops'  sees,  the 
beauty  of  their  churches  and  the  splendor  of  divine  wor- 
ship, the  maintenance  of  the  clergy,  the  relief  of  the  poor, 
and  the  other  necessities  of  their  Church. 

"  And  now,  addressing  our  prayers  to  Him  in  whom  it 
hath  pleased  God  the  Father,  in  the  dispensation  of  the  ful- 
ness of  time,  to  restore  all  things,  we  beseech  Him,  who 
gave  the  beginning  to  this  good  work,  to  perfect  the  same, 
to  confirm  and  strengthen  it,  and  to  grant  to  all  those  to 
whom  it  pertaineth  to  execute  our  present  decrees  the  light 
and  energy  of  divine  grace,  in  order  that  this  restoration  of 
the  episcopal  hierarchy  in  the  kingdom  of  Scotland  may 
redound  to  the  prosperity  of  the  Catholic  religion. 

"  To  this  end  we  also  invoke  near  the  Restorer  of  all 
things,  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  the  intercession  of  His  most 
holy  Mother,  of  St.  Joseph,  his  putative  father,  of  the 
blessed  Apostles  Peter  and  Paul,  of  St.  Andrew,  whom 
Scotland  especially  honors,  of  the  other  saints,  and  in  parti- 
cular of  Scotland's  queen,  St.  Margaret,  the  glory  and  bul- 
wark of  her  realm,  that  they  may  all  extend  to  this  Church 
in  her  newness  of  life  a  loving  and  continued  favor."  * 

And  so  in  the  land  of  the  Bruce,  to  which  her  sons  and 
daughters  cling  with  unspeakable  fondness  and  pride,  the 
ancient  faith  and  worship  of  the  generations  led  to  battle 
by  Bruce  were  reviving  anew  in  all  the  promise  of  a  glo- 
rious springtide.  Old  prejudices  are  waning  fast,  and  bro- 
therly love — that  true  charity  begotten  of  truth,  of  mutual 
knowledge  and  appreciation,  and  blessed  of  God  and  man 
— is  fast  bringing  minds  and  hearts  together.  The  spirit  of 
St.  Margaret  is  abroad.  The  Catholics  of  Scotland  cannot 
yet  rebuild  or  restore  from  their  ruins  the  beautiful  places 
of  the  ages  of  faith ;  but  other  convents  and  monasteries, 
schools  and  colleges,  with  great  institutions  of  charity  and 
beneficence,  are  springing  up  and  multiplying.  The  monas- 
tery-bell and  the  ancient  chant  of  the  Matins  and  Vesper 
office  are  heard  in  more  than  one  romantic  spot  among  these 

*  "  Acta,"  vol.  i.  pp.  1-16. 


4  1  6  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

hills  and  along  loch  and  stream,  so  that,  in  the  words  of 
Leo  XIII.  in  his  first  consistorial  allocution,  "  the  moun- 
tains of  Scotland  are  clothing  themselves  with  peace  for 
the  people,  and  her  hills  are  putting  on  righteousness." 

But  the  spirit  which  Margaret  had  brought  with  her 
from  her  native  home  on  the  Thames,  that  spirit  tried  and 
chastened  by  long  suffering,  is  working  powerfully  all 
through  her  own  paternal  kingdom,  like  the  vital  warmth  of 
sun  and  earth  and  atmosphere  in  May  and  June.  What 
cannot  be  hoped  of  that  land  and  that  people  when  all  will 
once  more  be  governed  by  that  spirit  ? 

Leo  XIII.  in  1881  found  a  fitting  opportunity  to  place 
on  record  his  opinion  of  the  Catholic  England  of  the  past, 
and  the  high  hopes  he  entertained  for  the  future  of  a  tho- 
rough revival  of  Catholicism,  and  of  the  mighty  influence 
the  Three  Kingdoms  and  their  vast  colonial  empire  are  des- 
tined to  exercise  on  the  social  and  religious  future  of  the 
world. 

This  opportunity  arose  from  the  peculiar  relations  in 
which  in  Great  Britain  the  members  and  houses  of  the  old 
Monastic  Orders  stood  with  regard  to  the  newly  restored  hi- 
erarchy. These  orders,  their  members  and  houses,  had  been 
subject  immediately  to  the  jurisdiction  of  the  Holy  See,  and 
only  indirectly  subject  to  the  ordinary  jurisdiction  of  the 
bishops.  The  bishops  themselves,  ever  since  the  days  of 
Elizabeth  down  to  the  middle  of  the  present  century,  had 
lived  and  labored  in  Great  Britain  as  vicars-apostolic,  imme- 
diately dependent  themselves  on  the  Propaganda,  and  par- 
taking of  the  extraordinary  and  exceptional  conditions  of  a 
persecuted  religion. 

The  Religious  Orders,  the  Benedictines  and  Jesuits  in 
particular,  had  braved  suffering  and  death  in  every  form, 
and  lived  among  their  tried  people  as  best  they  might  dur- 
ing the  dark  days  which  seemed  to  know  no  end  while  cen- 
tury succeeded  to  century.  They  lived  by  twos,  by  threes 
at  most,  generally  all  alone,  and  wandering  about  from  house 
to  house  when  the  persecution  was  at  its  height.  Not  be- 
fore the  present  century  did  their  residences,  their  schools, 


THE  ENGLISH  EP I  SCO  PA  C  Y  AA'D  RELIGIO  US  ORDERS.     4  I  7 

their  churches  dare  to  show  themselves  above  the  ground, 
like  timid  shoots  fearful  of  the  frost  when  the  winter  has 
been  long  and  the  spring  is  delayed. 

These  modest  houses  and  churches  and  schools  of  Bene- 
dictine and  Jesuit  throughout  the  length  and  breadth  of  the 
land  had  been  the  sanctuaries  and  nurseries  of  the  proscrib- 
ed faith  for  the  heroic  generations,  who  were  born  and  lived 
and  died  without  seeing  any  ray  of  hope  brighten  for  them 
the  western  sky  as  they  went  down  to  the  grave. 

Necessarily  these  temporary  abodes  of  the  Monastic 
Orders  could  not  be  subject  to  the  ordinary  prescriptions 
of  canon  law  during  the  days  of  trial ;  and  when  the  trial 
ceased  and  the  hierarchy  was  restored,  questions  arose  con- 
cerning the  Monastic  Orders  so  situated,  in  their  relations 
with  the  secular  clergy  and  the  bishops,  now  restored  to  the 
ordinary  status,  which  it  required  the  authority  and  all- 
seeing  wisdom  of  the  Holy  See  to  settle  once  and  for  ever. 

This  happened  in  1 880-81,  when  a  special  committee 
of  cardinals,  aided  by  the  most  experienced  jurists  in  Rome, 
examined  the  whole  matter  in  all  its  bearings,  submitted 
each  point  to  be  adjudicated  upon  to  the  Sovereign  Pontiff, 
and  enabled  him  to  issue  the  constitution  Romanes  Ponti- 
ficcs,  which  was  at  once  accepted  by  all  parties  as  God's 
own  oracle. 

"  That  the  Roman  Pontiffs  who  have  gone  before  us," 
the  Pope  says,  "  have  cherished  a  fatherly  love  for  the  illus- 
trious English  nation  we  know  from  the  records  of  history, 
and  from  the  solid  proofs  enumerated  by  Pius  IX.,  of  happy 
memory,  in  his  bull,  Universalis  Ecclesia,  of  September  29, 
1850.  As  that  bull  restored  the  episcopal  hierarchy  in  Eng- 
land, he  thereby  crowned  the  measure  of  benefits  conferred 
by  the  Holy  See  on  that  nation.  For  by  this  restoration  of 
diocesan  government  that  portion  of  Christ's  fold  already 
called  to  the  wedding  feast  of  the  Lamb,  and  become  a 
member  of  His  mystic  body,  acquired  a  fuller  and  more 
stable  possession  of  the  truth  and  order  through  the  rule 
and  government  of  their  bishops.  .  .  . 

"  The   subsequent  events   wonderfully  corresponded    to 


4 1 8  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

this  wise  design  [of  Pius  IX.]  ;  for  several  provincial  councils 
were  celebrated,  which  passed  salutary  laws  for  the  regula- 
tion of  diocesan  matters;  the  Catholic  faith  received  there- 
by daily  increase,  and  many  persons  distinguished  for  their 
rank  and  learning  returned  to  the  unity  of  the  Church. 
The  clergy  were  much  increased  in  number;  so  was  in- 
creased the  number  of  religious  houses,  not  only  of  those 
belonging  to  the  Regular  Orders,  but  of  those  belonging  to 
more  recent  institutes,  and  which  rendered  great  services  to 
religion  and  the  state  by  educating  the  young  and  practis- 
ing works  of  beneficence.  Many  pious  lay  sodalities  were 
founded,  new  missions  were  established,  and  a  great  num- 
ber of  churches  arose,  splendid  specimens  of  architecture 
and  magnificently  decorated.  Then  numerous  asylums  were 
created  for  orphans,  together  with  seminaries,  colleges,  and 
schools  in  which  a  multitude  of  children  and  young  people 
are  trained  to  piety  and  the  knowledge  of  letters. 

"  The  great  merit  and  praise  of  all  this  are  due  to  the 
character  of  the  people  of  Great  Britain,  which  is  one  of  in- 
vincible constancy  in  misfortune,  easily  accessible  to  truth 
and  to  reason ;  so  that  not  undeservedly  did  Tertullian  say 
of  them  :  Britannorum  inacccssa  Romanis  /oca,  Cliristo  sitl>- 
jccta — '  The  Britons  made  their  regions  inaccessible  to  the 
Romans,  but  subjected  them  to  Christ.'  *  But  what  is  most 
to  be  praised  in  Great  Britain  is  the  unwearied  vigilance  of 
the  bishops,  the  ready  disposition  to  obey  of  the  whole 
body  of  clergy,  and  their  prompt  and  diligent  activity." 

The  points  in  controversy  between  the  bishops  and  Reli- 
gious Orders  are  then  exposed,  discussed,  and  decided  with 
a  fulness  of  detail,  a  clearness,  a  grasp  of  the  principles  and 
interests  involved,  and  a  spirit  of  moderation,  justice,  and 
fatherly  love,  which  made  the  sentence  on  every  point  most 
acceptable,  as  it  was  final. 

Few  documents  in  the  annals  of  the  Roman  Pontificate 
are  more  creditable  and  more  deserving  of  a  canonist's 
study  than  this  constitution. 

*  "Adversus  Judaeos,"  c.  v. 


HAPP  Y  SE TTLEMENT  OF  ALL  DIFFICUL  TIES.       4 1 9 

"  Having  thus  solved  the  disputes  laid  before  us,"  the 
Pope  says  m  conclusion,  "  we  trust  that  the  care  we  have  be- 
stowed in  settling  them  shall  avail  not  a  little  to  promote 
the  peace  and  increase  of  the  Catholic  religion  in  England. 
We  have  based  our  sentences  carefully  and  scrupulously 
on  the  rule  of  justice  and  equity,  and  we  entertain  no 
fear  but  that  the  same  diligent  care  and  scrupulousness 
will  guide  the  parties  interested  in  carrying  out  our  deci- 
sions. Thus  shall  it  happen  that,  guided  by  the  authority 
and  wisdom  of  the  bishops,  the  members  of  the  Religious 
Orders,  who  have  deserved  so  well  of  the  English  missions, 
will  continue  to  labor  strenuously  and  cheerfully,  and  to 
reap  therefrom  the  most  abundant  and  happy  fruits  of 
salvation ;  and  that  both  bishops  and  religious  (to  use  thr 
words  of  Gregory  the  Great  to  the  bishops  of  England) 
with  common  .  .  .  accord  and  united  action,  shall  be  unani- 
mous in  arranging  together  what  is  to  be  done  for  Christ's 
glory,  that  they  shall  think  aright,  and  that  whatever  they 
Jtave  thus  thought  out  they  shall  carry  into  effect  without  differ- 
ing from  themselves.  *  The  fatherly  love  of  the  bishops  for 
their  fellow-laborers,  as  well  as  the  reciprocal  respect  of  the 
clergy  for  their  bishops,  alike  demand  that  such  concord 
shall  reign.  Such  concord  is  also  required  by  the  common 
purpose  of  both — the  salvation  of  souls,  which  they  have 
to  secure  by  united  zeal  and  efforts.  It  is  also  required  by 
the  necessity  of  resisting  those  who  are  the  enemies  of  the 
Catholic  name. 

"  Concord  is  a  source  of  strength,  and  it  enables  even  the 
weak  to  accomplish  great  things ;  it  is  also  a  sign  by  which 
the  true  followers  of  Christ  are  known  from  those  who  only 
pretend  to  be  so.  To  observe  this  concord  we  earnestly 
beseech  all  and  every  person  concerned,  asking  them  with 
Paul  to  fulfil  our  joy,  being  of  one  mind,  having  the  same 
charity,  being  of  one  accord,  agreeing  in  sentiment."  f 

The  fatherly  exhortation  fell  upon  docile  ears  and  loving 
hearts.  The  constitution  was  issued  on  May  16.  Ere  the 

*Apud  Bedam,  "  Hist.  Ang.,"  ii.  29. 
f  "  Acta,"  ii.  227  and  following. 


420  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

month  had  passed  Cardinal  Manning  wrote  to  the  Holy 
Father  that  he,  for  his  part,  cordially  acquiesced  in  the  de- 
cision of  the  Holy  See.  So  did  the  other  prelates,  and  so 
did  the  venerable  religious  whose  predecessors  had  lavished 
their  sweat  and  their  blood  on  the  field  they  were  culti- 
vating. No  weeds  of  discord  or  uncharitableness  could  take 
deep  root  there. 


CHAPTER  XXVI. 

LEO   XIII.    AND   IRELAND. 

HE  problem  of  Irish  misery,  misrule,  and  unrest  was 
forced  upon  the  attention  of  Leo  XIII.  from  the 
beginning  of  his  Pontificate.  As  the  Common  Father  of 
Catholic  Christendom,  the  teacher,  guide,  and  judge  of  all 
in  things  spiritual — in  all  things,  indeed,  which  touch  the 
conscience  or  regard  the  performance  of  duty  in  the  politi- 
cal as  well  as  the  purely  religious  order — the  Pope  had  to 
form  his  judgment  on  the  right  and  reason  there  was  in  the 
persistent  claims  of  Ireland  for  justice. 

Leo  XIII.  is  not  one  incapable  of  grasping  the  enormous 
power  of  the  two  great  English-speaking  peoples  at  the 
present  time — those,  namely,  of  the  British  Empire  and  of 
the  great  Republic  of  the  United  States.  He  had  well  con- 
sidered the  fact  that,  although  the  great  majority  of  Eng- 
lish-speaking folk  are  not  Catholics,  they  have  nevertheless 
preserved  in  their  home-life  and  their  whole  conduct  a  deep- 
seated  religious  sense.  This  pervades  all  their  institutions — 
pervades,  in  very  truth,  the  whole  framework  of  society 
among  them  like  the  animating  principle.  This  religious 
spirit,  inherited  from  so  many  generations,  is — and  the  Pon- 
tiff knows  it  well — one  of  the  most  precious  germs  of  the 
Christian  life  which  it  is  hoped  will  reign  among  the  civil- 
ized nations  of  the  coming  era. 

In  the  United  States  there  is,  in  the  relations  between 
the  Catholic  millions,  the  Federal  government,  and  the 
Protestant  majority,  no  existing  cause  of  dissatisfaction  or 
discontent.*  The  Catholic  religion  and  its  institutions  ex- 
ist side  by  side  with  other  denominations  on  the  solid 

*  The  only  element  of  religious  strife  and  political  danger  in  the  con- 
federation is  Mormonism.  Sooner  or  later  this  sect,  like  negro  slavery, 
will  come  under  the  arbitrament  of  the  sword. 


422  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

ground  of  the  common  law,  protected  in  its  free  growth  and 
development  by  the  common  magistrate  and  the  liberty- 
loving  spirit  of  the  people.  There  are  no  more  devoted  citi- 
xcns  of  the  Union  than  the  Catholics,  of  every  race,  who 
thrive  and  prosper  beneath  the  Constitution. 

In  the  British  Empire,  where  the  large-minded  Pope  de- 
sires to  see  the  same  union  of  all  creeds  and  races  as  the 
common  bond  of  national  strength,  no  chronic  injustice  or 
oppression  weakens  any  one  portion  of  the  great  colonial 
possessions  in  which  an  English  speaking  population  pre- 
dominates. The  one  cause  of  division,  of  discontent,  of 
weakness,  lies  in  the  very  heart  of  the  Three  Kingdoms 
themselves,  which  are  the  seat  of  imperial  sway. 

Could  the  Irish  be  appeased  ?  Could  the  two  islands 
be  ever  bound  together  in  a  political,  a  social,  a  moral  union 
as  strong  as  that  which  holds  the  State  of  New  York 
welded  to  that  of  Pennsylvania  as  two  integral  portions  of 
the  great  Republic  ? 

This  could  only  be  on  a  twofold  condition — that  Eng- 
land should  undo  the  wrong  perpetuated  by  more  than 
seven  centuries  of  misrule,  and  do  for  Ireland  what  simple 
justice  and  common  sense  demand :  treat  her  as  her  dear- 
est self-interest  demands  she  should  treat  Devonshire  or 
Wales  or  Yorkshire;  have  one  common  law  for  Irishman 
and  Englishman ;  compel  the  landlords  of  Ulster  and 
Munster  and  Connaught  to  have  as  much  care  of  the  pro- 
ductiveness of  the  soil,  and  the  health  and  welfare  of  the 
tillers,  as  the  landlords  of  the  English  counties  have  ever 
shown  for  their  estates,  their  farmers  and  farm-laborers.  Let 
the  development  of  every  resource — agricultural,  mineral, 
industrial,  commercial — which  Ireland  possesses  be  as  great 
an  object  of  English  statesmen's  solicitude  as  are  those 
of  Great  Britain. 

If  England  persists  in  doing  quite  the  contrary,  then  is 
it  manifest  that  she  docs  not  treat  the  "  sister  island  "  as  if 
it  were  an  integral,  essential  portion  of  the  empire  properly 
so-called — that  is,  the  Three  Kingdoms.  Where,  then,  is 
the  real  union  between  the  two  kingdoms  ?  . 


THE   CONDITIONS  OF  A    TRUE    UNION.  423 

This,  then,  is  the  first  condition  required,  that  the  legal 
bond  connecting  the  two  countries  should  mean  the  same 
measure  of  justice  dealt  out  equally  to  both,  and  the  same 
careful  and  kindly  economy  in  developing  the  resources 
and  promoting  all  the  best  interests  of  each  without  par- 
tiality or  distinction. 

The  other  condition  must  be  to  appease  the  feuds  of 
race  and  religion  so  industriously  and  systematically  fos- 
tered in  England  against  the  Irish  Catholic,  in  Ireland 
among  the  English  colony,  whom  the  British  government 
and  British  public  opinion  persist  in  regarding  and  acknow- 
ledging as  the  only  "  Irish  nation." 

The  concession  to  Ireland  of  the  measure  of  self-gov- 
ernment granted  to  Canada,  and  enjoyed  by  Ireland  a  cen- 
tury ago,  would  satisfy  the  claims  of  political  justice,  and, 
if  accompanied  by  the  liberty  to  cherish  their  home  indus- 
tries and  commerce,  it  would  also  have  the  effect  of  putting 
an  end  to  the  degrading  poverty,  the  misery,  as  well  as  the 
misgovernment,  which  are  the  inveterate  sores  of  that  un- 
happy country.  With  the  contentment  arising  from  Home 
Rule,  and  the  prosperity  certain  to  follow  it,  would  slowly 
but  surely  come  the  breaking  down  of  the  barriers  which  a 
bad  land  system,  together  with  the  bitter  passions  of  race 
and  religion,  had  created  between  the  Protestant  minority 
and  the  great  mass  of  their  Catholic  fellow-citizens. 

In  this  double  appeasement  Leo  XIII.,  like  all  true  states- 
men not  born  and  interested  partisans  of  landlord  misrule, 
like  all  impartial  and  enlightened  men,  saw  the  only  means  of 
cementing  a  strong,  lasting,  real  union  between  the  two  isl- 
ands and  the  two  peoples.  This  union,  founded  on  justice 
and  mutual  regard,  would — so  the  civilized  world  thinks — 
make  England  all-powerful  in  her  island  home,  and  enable 
her  to  cultivate  peacefully  and  surely,  in  every  portion  of  her 
vast  colonial  empire,  the  best  fruits  of  Christian  civilization 
and  material  prosperity. 

Thus,  while  the  reign  of  well-ordered  liberty,  justice,  and 
religion  enabled  the  United  States  and  the  Canadian  con- 
federacy to  make  a  whole  continent  populous,  prosperous, 


424  LIPE  OF  LEO  XliL 

and  happy,  the  enjoyment  of  the  same  blessings  would  keep 
Great  Britain  and  Ireland  the  great  conservative  force  in 
Europe,  while  revolution,  irreligion,  and  anarchism  were 
undermining  and  engulfing  the  old  order  of  things  on  the 
Continent. 

Anxious  to  see  this  long-desired  appeasement  of  the  just 
discontent  of  Ireland  brought  about  and  the  power  of  Eng- 
land thereby  increased  for  good,  the  Pope  was  startled,  in 
1879,  to  hear  once  more  the  periodical  cry  of  famine  issue 
from  the  Green  Isle;  and  with  the  fearful  distress  which 
such  a  cry  is  founded  on,  the  rumors  and  fears  of  agrarian 
or  revolutionary  violence  crossed  the  Continent  to  Rome. 

It  would  be  a  miracle  indeed  if,  in  a  country  where  the 
great  mass  of  the  rural  population,  the  tillers  of  the  soil,  had 
been  for  centuries  reduced  by  the  blind  antagonism  of  race 
and  religion,  and  by  the  inconceivable  unthrift,  neglect,  and 
hard-heartedness  of  the  majority  of  the  landlords,  to  depend 
for  subsistence  on  a  single  tuber,  the  potato,  and  to  live  in 
hovels  in  which  the  landlords  would  not  keep  their  dogs — if 
rack-renting,  and  starvation,  and  eviction  aroused  a  perishing 
people  to  resistance  and  such  acts  of  retaliation  as  their  un- 
armed condition  allowed. 

In  every  country  and  among  every  people  known  to 
history,  oppression,  spoliation,  the  pitiless  greed  of  the 
wealthy  and  the  powerful,  have  driven,  and  must  ever 
drive,  the  oppressed  and  starving  into  secret  associations 
and  dark  conspiracies  organized  against  the  oppressor. 

In  Ireland  there  has  been  no  exception  to  this  rule. 
There,  too,  rack-renting,  eviction,  starvation,  and  the  sys- 
t ma'tic  denial  of  all  redress  have  ever  driven  the  unhappy 
people  to  seek  the  only  means  of  resistance  and  of  redress 
within  their  reach — in  the  secret  societies.  From  the  de- 
spair begotten  of  the  extremity  of  distress  sprang  Fenian- 
ism  and  the  Invincibles  and  the  Dynamiters.  To  agrarian 
violence,  the  dark  deeds  and  threats  of  the  societies,  a 
drastic  Coercion  Act  was  deemed  the  only  remedy.  This, 
instead  of  reaching  the  root  of  the  disorder,  only  attempt- 
ed to  quell  the  symptoms.  It  was  like  cauterizing  with 


IRELAND  IN   THE  AUTUMN  OF  1879.  425 

red-hot  irons  a  deep  wound  when  the  poison  was  raging  in 
the  blood  and  throwing  its  victim  into  spasms  he  could  not 
control. 

To  be  just  we  are  bound  to  say  that  the  great  states- 
man who  is  at  this  moment  *  prime  minister  of  England, 
and  who  then  was  also  the  head  of  the  government,  did 
prepare  in  1880  a  deeper  and  more  efficacious  remedy  in 
the  shape  of  a  Land  Act.  This  act,  "in  itself  as  well  as  in 
the  designs  of  its  author  a  magnificent  boon  far  surpass- 
ing in  importance  anything  ever  bestowed  on  Ireland  by 
an  English  Parliament,  would  have  been  hailed  with  rap- 
ture and  gratitude  by  the  Irish  people  had  it  not  been 
heralded  by  the  most  odious  Coercion  Act  known  in  the 
dark  annals  of  Irish  misery.  Before  insulting  the  nation 
with  this  atrocious  measure  the  prime  minister  did  not 
stop  to  ask  the  Irish  bishops  and  the  political  leaders  of 
Ireland  whether  or  not  the  horrible  crimes  committed  in 
Dublin  or  elsewhere  were  the  legitimate  offspring  of  the 
teachings  of  the  former  or  of  the  principles  of  the  latter. 
Both  prelates,  priests,  and  politicians  would  have  answered 
that  these  deeds  of  blood  were  only  the  natural  conse- 
quences of  a  hatred  and  a  despair  begotten  by  an  oppres- 
sion to  which  there  had  been,  so  far,  no  let-up."  f 

What  was  needed  at  that  moment  in  Ireland  itself  to 
prevent  the  organization  and  growth  of  these  secret  socie- 
ties, to  keep  the  people  out  of  them,  and  to  repress  their 
deeds  of  violence  and  blood,  was  a  cordial  union  of  the 
bishops  among  themselves  and  with  their  priests,  and  a 
thorough  understanding  with  the  political  leaders  who  posr 
sessed  the  confidence  of  the  nation.  Unhappily,  in  1880 
and  the  four  following  years  no  such  union  existed  or  ap- 
peared probable. 

We  are  now  describing  the  social  and  political  condition 
of  Ireland  as  it  would  have  met  the  eyes  of  Leo  XIII.  had 

*  March,  1886. 

f  "The  Cause  of  Ireland  pleaded  before  the  Civilized  World,"  P.  F. 
Collier,  New  York,  1886.  It  is  still  problematic  whether  the  Phoenix  Park 
murderers  were  not  suborned  by  the  Dublin  Castle  officials. 


426  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

he  visited  the  island  in  the  autumn  of  1879,  when  the  cry 
of  starvation  and  the  fearful  reality  appalled  the  country 
and  startled  the  world. 

We  have  said  that  the  failure  of  the  crops  and  the  utter 
impossibility  of  paying  rents  where  no  rent  had  been  pro- 
duced by  the  land  did  not  prevent  the  proprietors  from  ex- 
acting it,  and,  where  it  was  not  and  could  not  be  paid,  turn- 
ing the  tenants  out  on  the  roadside  and  levelling  their  cot- 
tages before  their  eyes.  It  was  a  cruel  thing  to  do. 

Then  arose  the  cry :  "  Keep  your  grip  on  the  land  !  " 
and  the  Irish  Land  League  sprang  into  existence. 

It  stood  between  the  landlord  and  the  tenant,  demand- 
ing of  the  former  that  he  should  allow  the  tiller  of  the  soil 
to  live  upon  it  and  by  it,  co-operating  with  the  latter  in 
making  the  land  productive,  and  allowing  him  such  a  share 
of  the  fruits  of  his  husbandry  as  should  make  life  worth 
living  for.  It  stood  between  the  rack-renter  and  his  unfor- 
tunate and  helpless  tenant,  between  the  evicter  with  his 
crowbar-brigade  and  the  cottage  in  which  the  tenant  and 
his  fathers  before  him  were  born.  Irishmen  must  have 
means,  room,  and  liberty  to  live,  to  labor,  and  to  prosper 
on  a  soil  which  God  made  fertile,  but  which  man's  impro- 
vidence and  cruelty  had  made  unproductive  and  barren. 

Such  was  the  Land  League,  soon  to  be  suppressed,  only 
to  arise  anew  and  more  powerful  in  the  National  League 
and  its  outgrowth,  the  Irish  Parliamentary  Party. 

One  phenomenon  struck  sagacious  observers  from  the 
very  beginning  of  the  famine  of  1879,  from  the  first  ap- 
pearance of  the  Land  League,  and  the  National  Leagiu- 
which  succeeded  it — that  wherever  its  branches  existed  and 
were  patronized  by  the  bishop  and  his  priests,  there  no 
agrarian  crimes  were  heard  of,  no  secret-society  clubs  could 
subsist.  Wherever,  on  the  contrary,  as  in  Dublin,  as  in  parts 
of  Munster  and  Connaught,  the  bishop  would  not  tolerate 
the  existence  and  interference  of  the  League,  or  permit  his 
priests  to  keep  thereby  touch  and  control  of  his  people, 
there  the  secret  societies  had  it  all  their  own  way,  and  out- 
rn<re  and  murder  were  committed. 


THE  LA  AD  LEAGUE  AND  THE  NATIONAL  LEAGUE.  427 

It  thus  became  a  fact  of  experience,  an  undeniable  truth 
of  observation,  that  to  keep  the  people  from  violent  resist- 
ance to  oppressive  laws,  from  acts  of  bloody  retaliation  on 
rack-renting  landlords  and  their  agents,  from  all  illegal  and 
reprehensible  deeds  in  a  word,  it  was  necessary  that  both 
the  clergy  and  the  political  leaders  should  stand  by  the  peo- 
ple, advise,  restrain,  and  support  them  in  the  advocacy  of 
their  just  claims. 

The  National  party  in  Ireland — and  by  that  I  mean  four 
millions  at  least  out  of  the  five  who  compose  its  present 
population — needed  organization.  Clergy  and  people  had 
the  same  aspirations,  the  same  aims,  and  put  forward  one 
identical  claim  for  justice ;  but  they  lacked  what  peoples 
on  the  Continent  of  Europe  possessed.  In  every  country 
where  revolution  has  upset  the  old  order  of  things  and 
established  a  new,  the  change,  whether  for  good  or  for  evil, 
has  been  effected  by  organization.  That  enabled  the  secret 
societies  to  use  the  government  and  arms  of  Piedmont,  in 
Italy,  to  change  the  political,  social,  and  religious  condi- 
tions of  the  Peninsula.  That  enables  the  same  dread  Oc- 
cult Force  to  level,  piece  by  piece,  the  entire  framework  of 
society  in  France.  That  gave  the  seventeen  millions  of 
German  Catholics  the, strength  to  baffle  and  to  withstand 
the  most  anti-Catholic  and  destructive  legislation  of  the 
Kulturkampf. 

This  want  of  organization  is  the  secret  of  Poland's  cease- 
less and  bootless  struggles  for  freedom  and  the  restoration 
of  her  nationality. 

Up  to  the  summer  of  1885  this,  with  regard,  at  least,  to 
the  furtherance  of  the  national  cause,  was  the  fatal  defect 
of  the  Irish  hierarchy  and  inferior  clergy.  Now  they  are 
morally  a  unit,  and  as  such  they  constitute  the  main  ele- 
ment of  strength  in  the  present  national  movement.  But 
with  the  Land  League,  the  National  League,  and  the  Par- 
liamentary party  the  people  and  their  political  leaders 
found  out  the  secret,  the  power,  and  the  success  of  a  per- 
fect and  compact  organization. 

Before  this  salutary  twofold  union  of  the  clergy  among 


428  LIFE  OF  LEO  XI1L 

themselves  and  with  the  people  and  the  Parliamentary 
party  had  been  happily  consummated,  the  recurrence  of 
agrarian  outrages  and  deeds  of  blood  in  several  parts  of 
Ireland  had  given  the  bishops  much  concern  and  had 
deeply  pained'  Leo  XIII. 

Of  his  opinion  and  sentiments  in  regard  to  the  Irish 
people  and  the  justice  of  their  claims  we  have  very  full 
and  satisfactory  evidence  in  the  two  letters  addressed  by 
him  to  the  Irish  hierarchy  on  August  I,  1882,  and  January 
I,  1883,  respectively. 

"  The  kindly  affection,"  he  says  in  the  former,  "  which 
we  cherish  toward  Irishmen,  and  which  seems  to  increase 
with  their  present  sufferings,  forces  us  to  follow  the  course 
of  events  in  your  island  with  the  deep  concern  of  a  fatherly 
heart.  From  their  consideration,  however,  we  derive  more 
of  anxiety  than  of  comfort,  seeing  that  the  condition  of  the 
people  is  not  what  we  wish  it  to  be,  one  of  peace  and 
prosperity. 

"  There  still  remain  many  sources  of  grievance  ;  conflict 
ing  party  passions  incite  many  persons  to  violent  courses  ; 
some  even  have  stained  themselves  with  fearful  murders, 
as  if  a  nation's  welfare  could  be  procured  by  dishonor  and 
crime  ! 

"  This  state  of  things  is  to  you  as  well  as  to  us  a  cause 
of  serious  alarm,  as  we  had  evidence  of  ere  now,  and  as  \\  e 
have  just  noticed  by  the  resolutions  adopted  in  your  meet- 
ing at  Dublin.  Fearful,  as  you  were,  for  the  salvation  of 
your  people,  you  have  clearly  shown  them  what  they  have 
to  refrain  from  in  the  present  critical  conjuncture  and  in 
the  very  midst  of  the  national  struggle. 

"  In  this  you  have  discharged  the  duty  imposed  alike 
by  your  episcopal  office  and  your  love  of  country.  At  no 
time  do  a  people  more  need  the  advice  of  their  bishops 
than  when,  carried  away  by  some  powerful  passion,  they 
see  before  them  deceptive  prospects  of  bettering  their  con- 
dition. It  is  when  impelled  to  commit  what  is  criminal 
and  disgraceful  that  the  multitude  need  the  voice  and  the 
hand  of  the  bishop  to  keep  them  back  from  doing  wrong, 


LETTER  OF  LEO  XIII.    TO  THE  IRISH  HIERARCHY.     429 

and  to  recall  them  by  timely  exhortation  to  moderation 
and  self-control.  Most  timely,  therefore,  was  your  advice 
to  your  people,  reminding  them  of  the  Saviour's  injunction, 
'  Seek  ye  first  the  kingdom  of  God  and  His  justice.'  For 
all  Christians  are  therein  commanded  to  keep  their  thoughts 
fixed,  in  their  ordinary  conduct  as  well  as  in  their  political 
acts,  on  the  goal  of  their  eternal  salvation,  and  to  hold  all 
things  subordinate  to  the  fulfilment  of  their  duty  to  God. 

"  If  Irishmen  will  only  keep  to  these  rules  of  conduct 
they  will  be  free  to  seek  to  rise  from  the  state  of  misery 
into  which  they  have  fallen.  They  surely  have  a  right  to 
claim  the  lawful  redress  of  their  wrongs.  For  no  one  can 
maintain  that  Irishmen  cannot  do  what  it  is  lawful  for  all 
other  peoples  to  do. 

"  Nevertheless  even  the  public  welfare  must  be  regu- 
lated by  the  principles  of  honesty  and  righteousness.  It 
is  a  matter  for  serious  thought  that  the  most  righteous 
cause  is  dishonored  by  being  promoted  by  iniquitous 
means.  Justice  is  inconsistent  not  only  with  all  violence, 
but  especially  so  with  any  participation  in  the  deeds  of  un- 
lawful societies,  which,  under  the  fair  pretext  of  righting 
wrong,  bring  all  communities  to  the  verge  of  ruin.  Just 
as  our  predecessors  have  taught  that  all  right-minded  men 
should  carefully  shun  these  dark  associations,  even  so  you 
have  added  your  timely  admonition  to  the  same  effect. 

"  As,  however,  these  same  dangers  may  recur,  it  will  be- 
come your  watchful  care  to  renew  these  admonitions,  be- 
seeching all  Irishmen  by  their  reverence  for  the  Catholic 
name,  and  by  their  very  love  for  their  native  land,  to  have 
nothing  to  do  with  these  secret  societies.  These  can  in  no 
wise  help  a  nation  to  obtain  redress  for  its  grievances ;  and, 
all  too  frequently,  they  madly  impel  those  whom  they  have 
ensnared  to  commit  crimes. 

"  Irishmen  take  a  just  pride  in  being  called  Catholics — 

an  appellation  which,  according  to  St.  Augustine,  means  the 

guardians  of  all  honor  and  uprightness,  the  followers  of  all 

equity  and  justice*     Let  them  fulfil  by  their  acts  all  that 

*  "  Liber  de  Vera  Religione,"  n.  9. 


430  LIFE  OF  LEO  .V//7. 

this  word  Catholic  implies  ;  and  let  them,  while  vindicating 
their  own  just  rights,  endeavor  to  be  indeed  all  that  their 
name  suggests.  Let  them  remember  that  '  the  highest  lib- 
erty consists  in  being  free  from  all  crime ' ;  and  let  no  one 
among  them,  so  long  as  he  lives,  have  to  undergo  lawful 
punishment  '  as  a  murderer,  or  a  thief,  or  a  slanderer,  or 
one  who  has  coveted  other  people's  property.'  * 

"...  We  deem  what  you  have  decreed  concerning 
your  young  priests  to  be  proper  and  timely.  For  if  ever 
there  were  circumstances  when  priests  should  be  zeal- 
ous and  energetic  in  maintaining  public  order  amid  popu- 
lar excitement,  such  are  the  present  circumstances  with 
you.  And  just  as  the  estimation  in  which  each  one  is  held 
by  the  public  is  the  measure  of  his  influence  over  others, 
even  so  should  priests  endeavor  to  win  this  public  esteem 
by  self  respect,  firmness,  and  temperate  word  and  deed. 
They  should  do  nothing  that  prudence  could  condemn, 
nothing  that  can  fan  the  flame  of  party  strife.  .  .  . 

"  In  this  way,  and  by  following  such  rules  of  conduct, 
we  do  believe  that  Ireland  shall  yet  attain  to  the  prosper- 
ity which  she  seeks,  and  that,  too,  without  wronging  any 
one.  As  we  have  already  declared  to  you,  we  trust  still 
that  the  government  will  conclude  to  grant  satisfaction  to 
the  just  claims  of  Irishmen.  This  we  are  led  to  believe 
from  their  acquaintance  with  the  true  state  of  things  and 
from  their  statesmanlike  wisdom  ;  for  there  can  be  no  ques- 
tion that  on  the  safety  of  Ireland  depends  the  tranquillity 
of  the  whole  empire. 

"  Meanwhile,  sustained  by  this  hope,  we  shall  lose  no 
opportunity  of  helping  the  Irish  people  by  our  advice, 
pouring  forth  to  God  for  them  prayers  filled  with  the 
warmest  zeal  and  love,  beseeching  God  to  look  down  with 
kindness  on  a  nation  made  illustrious  by  the  practice  of  so 
many  virtues,  to  appease  the  present  storm  of  political  pas- 
sion, and  to  reward  them  at  length  with  peace  and  pros- 
perity." 

Such  were  the  noble  words  of  fatherly  love  and  advice 

*  "  Ada,"  iii.  129-133. 


SECOiVD  LETTER   OF    THE  POPE. 

sent  to  Ireland  at  a  time  when  superhuman  efforts  were 
needed  on  the  part  of  the  religious  guides,  as  well  as  on 
that  of  the  political  leaders,  to  prevent  a  people  driven  to 
despair  from  having  recourse  to  the  most  violent  and  hurt- 
ful measures. 

There  is  the  outspoken  acknowledgment  of  the  justice 
of  the  nation's  claims  and  of  their  constitutional  right  to 
seek  redress  by  legal  means. 

Not  in  vain  was  the  strong  appeal  made  by  the  Pope  to 
Irishmen's  pride  in  being  called  "  Catholics,"  and  in  the 
prayer  that  they  would  fulfil  in  their  conduct  the  meaning 
of  the  word.  Still  the  agitation  continued,  the  working  of 
Coercion  Acts  only  serving  to  irritate  and  inflame  where  the 
united  efforts  of  all  men  of  order,  of  all  who  loved  Ireland 
truly,  should  have  been  used  to  soothe  the  angry  passions 
of  the  masses. 

In  the  autumn  of  1882  the  difficulties  in  the  path  of  the 
bishops  seemed  to  multiply,  and  again  they  had  recourse 
to  the  Sovereign  Pontiff  for  light  and  guidance  (Octo- 
ber 4). 

"  Your  letter,"  he  says  in  reply,  "  is  a  new  proof  of 
your  respect  and  affection,  as  it  is  an  evidence  of  the  grati- 
tude you  and  they  feel  toward  us  for  our  concern  in  the 
welfare  of  Ireland,  and  for  the  counsels  given  in  our  letter 
of  August  i  last  past.  .  .  . 

"  We  cannot  help  congratulating  you  ...  on  the  zeal 
displayed  in  calming  the  existing  agitation.  .  .  .  We  also 
congratulate  these  children  of  the  Church,  who  have  lis- 
tened so  obediently  to  your  admonitions,  and  who,  endur- 
ing with  Christian  fortitude  the  sufferings  of  adversity, 
knew  how  to  keep  their  sense  of  wrong  within  the  bounds 
imposed  by  duty  and  religion. 

"  Still,  although  Irish  Catholics  continue  to  give  splen- 
did proofs  of  their  zeal  for  religion  and  of  obedience  to  the 
Supreme  Pastor,  the  condition  of  public  affairs  requires  that 
they  should  bear  in  mind  the  rules  of  conduct  which  our 
affectionate  solicitude  for  them  induced  us  to  lay  down  for 

*  *'  Acta,"  iii. 


432  LIFE  OF  LEO  XI II. 

their  direction.  The  secret  societies,  as  we  have  leani* ••! 
with  pain  during  these  last  months,  always  persist  in  put- 
ting their  hope  in  the  commission  of  crime,  in  kindling  into 
fury  popular  passions,  in  seeking  for  the  national  grievances 
remedies  worse  than  the  grievances  themselves,  and  in  pursu- 
ing a  path  which  will  lead  to  ruin  instead  of  to  prosperity. 

"  It  is,  therefore,  imperative  that  you  inculcate  deeply 
in  the  minds  of  your  beloved  people,  as  we  have  already 
said,  that  there  is  but  one  rule  for  what  is  right  and  for 
what  is  useful ;  that  the  just  cause  of  their  country  must  be 
kept  separate  from  the  aims,  the  plots,  the  deeds  of  criminal 
associations ;  that  it  is  both  right  and  lawful  for  all  w//0 
suffer  wrong  to  seek  redress  by  all  rightful  means,  but  that  it 
is  neither  right  nor  lawful  to  have  recourse  to  crime  for  re- 
dress ;  that  Divine  Providence  enables  the  just  to  reap  at 
last  a  joyful  harvest  from  their  patient  waiting  and  their 
virtuous  deeds,  whereas  the  evil-doers,  having  run  their 
dark  course  to  no  purpose,  incur  the  severe  condemna- 
tion of  both  God  and  man. 

"  While  we  remind  you  of  all  these  truths,  impelled  to 
do  so  by  our  ardent  desire  to  secure  some  solace,  quiet,  and 
prosperity  to  Ireland,  we  are  also  filled  with  confidence 
that  you,  acting  in  concert  and  bound  together  by  brother- 
ly love,  will  continue  to  bestow  your  best  care  in  prevent- 
ing your  faithful  people  from  having  anything  to  do  with 
men  who,  carried  away  by  their  own  passions,  think  they 
are  doing  their  country  service  when  they  commit  the 
worst  crimes,  and  who,  by  urging  others  to  like  wickedness, 
bring  shame  and  dishonor  on  the.  cause  of  the  people." 

It  was  worthy  of  the  great  heart  of  the  Pontiff,  tried  as 
he  then  was  by  many  sorrows,  and  burdened  by  an  intol- 
erable load  of  care,  to  utter  his  sentiments  regarding  Ire- 
land with  such  solemn  emphasis  and  such  fatherly  tender- 
ness, while  the  struggle  in  Ireland  was  growing  in  intensity, 
and  every  effort  to  coerce  only  increased  tenfold  the  power 
of  resistance,  and  intensified  in  the  same  measure  the 
hatred  of  laws,  law-givers,  and  law-courts,  which  to  the 
people  meant  only  the  administration  of  injustice. 


DR.  WALSH'S  ELECTION  TO   THE  SEE  OF  DUBLIN.     433 

No  doubt  the  words  of  Leo  XIII.,  repeated  and  com- 
mended from  every  pulpit  in  Ireland,  went  far  to  assuage 
the  public  resentment  at  the  passing  and  enforcement  of 
the  "  Crimes  Act,"  and  still  further  to  prevent  many  from 
joining  the  dark  societies  which  always  spring  from  na- 
tional misery  and  thrive  on  national  discord. 

The  Land  League  was  suppressed  and  its  members  im- 
prisoned by  the  hundred;  but  this  repression  only  left  the 
secret  societies  a  free  field  to  work,  and  murders  and  out- 
rages increased  apace.  The  prison-doors  were  opened  by 
the  government,  and  it  became  at  once  apparent  that  the 
Land  League,  instead  of  being  a  iource  of  agitation,  out- 
rage, and  crime,  was  the  only  <.  ffective  barrier  against 
them. 

Then  arose  the  National  League,  which  grew  and  grew 
until  it  counted  among  its  members  or  its  fellow-workers 
the  whole  body  of  the  clergy,  nine-tenths  of  the  Catholic 
laity,  and  not  a  few  of  the  most  enlightened  and  influential 
among  Protestant  clergymen  and  laymen. 

An  incident  occurred  soon  after  this  which  chilled  for 
the  moment  the  warm  feeling  of  gratitude  and  veneration, 
felt  in  Ireland  and  among  Irishmen  everywhere  for  the 
Holy  Father.  We  allude  to  the  famous  Propaganda  cir- 
cular. But  the  see  of  Dublin  becoming  vacant  in  Febru- 
ary, 1885,  by  the  death  of  Cardinal  McCabe,  the  Sove- 
reign Pontiff  reserved  to  himself  to  confirm  the  choice 
made  of  Very  Rev.  Dr.  Walsh,  President  of  St.  Patrick's 
College,  Maynooth,  to  succeed  to  the  deceased  cardinal. 

The  election  of  this  distinguished  man  was  in  itself  re- 
markable, as  indicating  among  the  clergy  of  the  metropolis 
an  almost  unanimous  impulse  to  join  the  national  move- 
ment, and  thus  reverse  the  policy  followed  by  the  two  last 
archbishops.  The  intrigues,  authorized  or  unauthorized, 
which  thereafter  occurred,  to  have  the  nomination  of  Dr. 
Walsh  set  aside  by  Rome,  proved  ineffectual.  The  Irish 
hierarchy  had  been  summoned  to  Rome  before  the  death 
of  Cardinal  McCabe.  They  repaired  thither  in  May.  The 

Sovereign  Pontiff  had,  therefore,  ample  opportunity  to  as- 

28 


434  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

•certain  the  wishes  of  the  Irish  episcopate  on  the  subject  of 
this  important  election,  and  to  be  made  acquainted  with 
the  true  significance  of  the  national  movement. 

In  June  Dr.  Walsh's  nomination  was  confirmed. 
Thenceforward  this  prelate  was  both  the  organ  of  his 
brother-bishops  in  all  public  and  national  matters  and  the 
spokesman  of  his  fellow-countrymen.  From  that  moment, 
too,  there  was  unity  of  thought,  purpose,  and  action  be- 
tween the  clergy  and  the  Parliamentary  party. 

The  passing  cloud  which  had  in  the  Propaganda  circular 
for  a  moment  darkened  and  chilled  the  Irish  Catholic  heart 
was  now  forgotten,  and  Leo  XIII.  became  to  Ireland  and 
her  sons  the  Lumen  in  Ccelo  of  their  own  St.  Malachy. 

In  dealing  with  the  British  cabinet  the  Pope,  while  con- 
sidering the  interests  of  Catholic  subjects  in  Great  Britain 
and  in  Ireland,  as  well  as  throughout  the  colonies,  had  also 
to  have  a  regard  for  the  feelings  of  the  Irish  race  both  in- 
side and  outside  the  British  dominions.  As  the  settled 
gloom  on  the  material  prospects  of  the  Emerald  Isle 
deepened  with  every  decade  that  passed,  leaving  the 
Irish  agriculturist  less  of  resources  and  hope,  and  Irish 
labor  no  remunerative  field  or  market  within  the  compass 
of  the  Irish  seas,  the  best  and  most  religious  men  in 
-the  nation  found  increasing  difficulty  in  restraining  the 
•outbursts  of  mingled  despair  and  righteous  wrath  arising 
from  wrongs  easy  of  redress,  but  to  which  the  government 
only  applied  homoeopathic  doses  of  relief,  coupled  with  in- 
rtolerable  coercion. 

English  statesmanship,  Orange  fanaticism,  and  hatred 
.of  race  cried  aloud  :  Let  them  starve  or  emigrate  !  What 
tcould  the  religious  guides  or  the  wise  political  leaders  of  a 
rstarvirvg  and  oppressed  people  say  or  do  to  prevent  an 
armed  uprising,  which  would  have  justified  the  accusations 
and  the  demands  of  the  exterminators  ?  And  what  could 
the  fatherly  heart  and  the  unpurchasable  justice  of  the 
Roman  Pontiff  do  to  save  the  sufferers,  to  inspire  the  mis- 
governing with  a  sense  of  equity  and  humanity,  to  refuse 
Jo  the  oppressor  a  sanction  of  any  of  his  schemes  for  re- 


POPE  LEO'S  SYMPATHY  WITH  IRELAND.          435 

dressing  the  wrong,  but  what,  in  the  preceding  pages,  as 
we  can  judge  from  his  own  letter,  he  has  done? 

He  has  set  the  seal  of  his  sanction  on  the  justice  and 
righteousness  of  Irish  claims  for  self-government ;  he  has 
recommended  to  the  nation  and  its  leaders,  churchmen 
and  laymen,  obedience  to  the  laws,  peaceful  and  constitu- 
tional methods,  and  he  has  expressed  his  hope  and  uttered 
his  prayer  tJiat  justice  may  be  done  to  Ireland. 


CHAPTER  XXVII. 

• 

FUNERAL  OF  PIUS    IX.  —  SITUATION   OF    THE   POPE   IN 

ROME. 


summer  of  1881  in  Rome  was  rendered  sadly 
memorable  by  an  incident  of  which  the  civilized 
world  heard  with  equal  astonishment  and  indignation. 
This  was  the  savage  riot  got  up  by  the  anti-clerical  clubs 
of  Rome  on  the  occasion  of  the  translation  of  the  remains 
of  Pius  IX.  from  their  temporary  resting-place  in  St.  Peter's 
to  his  own  chosen  burial-place  in  the  basilica  of  San  Lo- 
renzo outside  the  walls  of  Rome.  As  Leo  XIII.  states  in 
his  narrative,  the  government  and  the  municipal  authorities 
had  been  duly  informed  of  the  intended  removal.  That 
they  deliberately  appointed  an  insufficient  military  guard 
for  the  funeral  procession,  knowing  that  it  would  be  at- 
tacked, is  now  a  matter  of  which  no  statesman  in  Europe 
doubts.  That  they  were  glad  to  see  the  lifeless  remains  of 
the  man  they  had  persecuted,  despoiled,  and  hated  with  an 
intensity  proportionate  to  the  greatness  of  the  wrong  they 
did  him,  outraged  in  death,  who  will  gainsay  ? 

It  is  a  pity  to  strip  the  allocution  which  Leo  XIII.  de- 
livered on  August  4  following  of  its  own  native  diction. 
His  pen  was  inspired  by  a  righteous  anger  at  the  inhuman 
outrage  thus  committed  in  the  city  of  the  Popes  against 
one  who  had  been  beloved  by  the  Catholic  world  as  Pope 
had  never  been  before. 

But  let  us  listen  to  his  solemn  recital  of  occurrences  : 
"  Pius  IX.,  as  you  know,  Venerable  Brothers,  gave  in- 
structions that  he  should  be  buried  in  the  basilica  of  San 
Lorenzo  outside  the  walls.  Wherefore,  the  time  having 
come  for  the  execution  of  his  last  will  in  this  regard,  the 
authorities  charged  with  guarding  the  public  peace  were 

43* 


OUTRAGES  AT  THE  FUNERAL    OF  PIUS  IX.        437 

informed,  and  it  was  resolved  to  take  the  remains  away, 
from  the  Vatican  basilica  in  the  silence  of  the  night,  at  the 
time  when  all  is  wont  to  be  most  quiet.  It  was  also  de- 
termined that  the  funeral  procession  should  be,  not  what 
the  dignity  of  the  pontifical  rank  required  or  was  demanded 
by  the  ritual  of  the  Church,  but  what  the  present  state  of 
the  city  permitted  to  be  carried  out. 

"  But  the  tidings  having  spread  all  over  the  city,  the 
Romaa  people,  not  forgetful  of  the  benefits  conferred  by  the 
great  Pontiff,  as  well  as  his  virtues,  showed  spontaneously 
that  they  intended  to  give  a  last  testimony  of  their  regard 
and  love  for  their  Common  Parent.  This  surely  was  only  a 
mark  of  gratitude  and  piety  worthy  of  the  Roman  people's 
dignity  and  religious  feeling,  all  the  more  so  as  they  pur- 
posed doing  nothing  more  than  to  follow  the  procession 
decorously,  or  to  show  themselves  reverently  and  in  large 
numbers  wheresoever  it  passed. 

"  On  the  appointed  day  and  hour  the  funeral  train  left 
the  Vatican,  amid  a  great  multitude  filling  the  square  and 
the  adjoining  streets.  There  was  a  large  body  of  pious 
men  around  the  funeral  car ;  a  still  greater  number  followed 
it.  These,  reciting  the  prayers  becoming  the  occasion,  had 
no  thought  of  uttering  a  word  or  a  sound  offensive  to 
others  or  calculated  to  incite  in  any  way  to  disorder.  But 
from  the  very  beginning  of  the  march  a  well-known  band 
of  bad  men  set  about  disturbing  the  performance  of  the 
solemn  office  by  unseemly  cries.  Then,  as  their  numbers 
and  audacity  increased,  so  they  went  on  increasing  in  their 
efforts  to  create  tumult  and  terror;  they  uttered  the  most 
atrocious  blasphemies,  hailed  with  hissing  and  insults  the 
most  respectable  persons.  The  funeral  cortege  was  hemmed 
in  by  crowds  of  angry  men,  whose  looks  and  voices  threat- 
ened them  at  every  step,  while  again  and  again  they  at- 
tacked the  procession  with  volleys  of  stones  or  with  blows. 

"  Worse  than  all,  what  no  savages  would  have  done, 
they  did  not  even  spare  the  remains  of  the  holy  Pope. 
They  loaded  his  name  with  opprobrious  epithets,  again 
and  again  hurled  a  shower  of  stones  at  the  hearse,  crying 


438  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

out  repeatedly  that  the  unburied  body  should  be  cast 
forth. 

"  This  shameful  scene  lasted  all  through  the  long  route, 
during  the  space  of  two  hours. 

"  If  the  last  extremity  of  outrage  was  not  reached  it  is 
due  to  the  self-restraint  of  those  who,  subjected  to  all  kinds 
of  violence  and  insult,  preferred  rather  to  bear  everything 
patiently  than  to  suffer  that  worse  things  should  happen 
during  the  discharge  of  so  sacred  a  duty. 

"  These  facts,  known  to  all  and  attested  by  the  public 
records,  cannot  be  denied  by  those  interested  in  doing  so, 
all  their  efforts  to  the  contrary  notwithstanding.  Spread 
abroad  by  public  report,  they  have  everywhere  filled  Cath- 
olic hearts  with  grief,  excited  the  spontaneous  indignation 
of  all  men  who  still  have  a  regard  for  the  name  of  human- 
ity. From  all  parts  we  daily  receive  letters  expressing  the 
execration  of  the  writers  for  the  foul  shame  of  the  deed 
and  its  atrocious  savagery. 

"  But  to  ourselves  above  all  others  this  serious  and  crim- 
inal outrage  has  been  a  source  of  equal  concern  and  anx- 
iety. Our  duty  impels  us  to  guard  the  dignity  of  the  Pon- 
tificate and  to  defend  the  memory  of  our  predecessors ;  we, 
therefore,  in  your  presence  denounce  and  deplore  this  out- 
rage, and  cast  the  blame  on  those  to  whom  it  belongs,  who 
failed  to  defend  against  the  rage  of  impious  men  the  sa- 
cred rights  of  religion  and  the  freedom  of  the  citizens. 
From  what  has  occurred  the  Catholic  world  can  see  how 
little  security  there  is  for  us  in  Rome. 

"  It  was  before  a  matter  of  notoriety  that  our  situation 
was  for  many  reasons  one  of  intolerable  suffering.  The 
facts  which  have  just  happened  have  made  more  evident 
still  that,  if  the  present  condition  of  things  be  bad  enough, 
what  we  have  to  expect  in  the  future  must  be  still  worse. 

"  If  the  remains  of  Pius  IX.  could  not  be  born*  through 
the  city  without  giving  occasion  to  shameful  disorders  and 
violent  rioting,  who  will  guarantee  that  the  same  criminal 
violence  would  not  break  forth  should  we  appear  in  the 
streets  in  a  manner  becoming  our  station — especially  if  a 


MANCINTS  DISINGENUOUS  STATEMENTS.  439 

pretext  were  taken  from  our  having,  as  in  duty  bound,  cen- 
sured unjust  laws  passed  in  Rome,  or  any  other  notorious 
act  of  public  wrong-doing?  Wherefore  it  becomes  more 
and  more  a  thing  well  understood  that  we  can  now  only 
live  in  Rome  by  remaining  a  prisoner  shut  up  in  the  palace 
of  the  Vatican. 

"  Furthermore,  if  one  only  reads  carefully  the  signs  of 
the  times  and  remembers  that  the  secret  societies  have  con- 
spired to  destroy  Catholicism,  one  can  reasonably  affirm 
that  the  enemy  is  maturing  still  more  pernicious  designs 
against  the  Church  and  the  Sovereign  Pontiff,  as  well  as 
against  the  ancestral  faith  of  the  Italian  people." 

Signer  Mancini,  then  Minister  6f  Foreign  Affairs  in  the 
Depretis  cabinet,  felt  called  upon  to  write  to  the  represen- 
tatives of  his  government  at  the  various  courts.  Not  one 
fair-minded  person  on  either  side  of  the  Atlantic  believed 
his  statement,  bungling,  blundering,  and  palpably  untruth- 
ful as  it  was.  He  and  the  men  whose  spokesman  he  was 
flattered  themselves  that  they  held  undisputed  possession 
of  Rome,  and  could,  any  moment  they  pleased,  turn  the 
Pope  out  of  the  Vatican.  Even  we  in  America  believed 
that  European  diplomacy,  speaking  in  the  name  of  all  the 
Great  Powers,  had  for  ever  s,et  the  seal  of  their  approbation 
on  the  usurpation  of  the  Papal  States  and  the  occupation  of 
Rome.  But  Signer  Mancini  and  Prime  Minister  Depretis 
knew  right  well,  in  August,  1881,  and  remembered  with 
unspeakable  bitterness,  that  at  the  Congress  of  Berlin,  on 
the  conclusion  of  the  Russo-Turkish  war,  the  proposal  of 
Count  Corti,  the  Italian  plenipotentiary,  to  obtain  then 
and  there  a  solemn  and  final  sanction  of  the  "  facts  accom- 
plished "in  Italy  and  in  Rome  by  Victor  Emmanuel  and 
the  revolution,  was  indignantly  repelled  by  Prince  Bismarck 
and  the  other  members  of  the  Congress. 

So  the  facts  accomplished  have  not  been  solemnly  recog- 
nized and  sanctioned  by  the  only  court  in  the  civilized 
world  to  which  it  appertains  to  do  so.  And  as  the  years 
pass  on  the  chances  are  continually  lessened  for  obtaining 
such  a  sanction. 


440  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

The  day  will  surely  come  in  Rome  when  the  memory  of 
Pius  IX.  will  be  honored  by  a  solemn  pageant,  a  proces- 
sion through  the  streets  of  Rome,  from  the  Vatican  to  San 
Lorenzo,  of  representatives  of  every  Catholic  country 
under  the  sun, 

It  is  impossible  that  the  Popes,  the  Common  Parents  of 
all  humanity,  should  not  have  their  own  again,  and  be  mas- 
ters in  that  Rome  where,  after  the  downfall  of  the  Roman 
Empire  and  the  last  invasion  of  the  barbarians,  they  estab- 
lished the  focus  of  that  new,  that  glorious  Christian  civiliza- 
tion which  their  missionaries  and  their  authority  extended 
to  every  continent  and  every  people. 


CHAPTER  XXVIII. 

LEO   XIII.   AND   THE   UNITED   STATES. 

first  official  act  of  Leo  XIII.*  in  1884  was  the 
issuing  of  the  bull  Rei  Cat/wliccz  incrementum,  con- 
vening at  Baltimore,  in  the  November  following,  a  Plenary 
Council  of  the  Church  in  the  United  States.  The  twelve 
archbishops  had  been  summoned  by  the  Sovereign  Pontiff 
to  meet  in  Rome  in  the  preceding  November  (1883),  there 
to  receive  from  himself  and  the  Congregation  of  the  Propa- 
ganda the  necessary  instructions  concerning  the  new  mat- 
ters to  be  discussed,  and  the  perfecting  in  every  way  of 
Church  organization  and  discipline  within  the  limits  of  the 
Republic. 

As  the  venerable  Cardinal  McCloskey,  Archbishop  of 
New  York,  was  prevented  by  ill-health  from  being  present 
in  the  council,  the  Holy  Father  appointed  Archbishop  Gib- 
bons, of  Baltimore,  Apostolic  Delegate  and  president  of 
the  council.  The  archbishops  returned  from  Rome  as  soon 
as  their  consultations  were  ended,  and  began,  in  conjunc- 
tion with  their  respective  suffragans,  the  examination  and 
discussion  of  the  manifold  important  matters  to  be  decided 
in  the  approaching  assembly. 

The  labors  of  the  prelates,  the  progress  of  religion 
among  their  flocks,  and  the  prospect  of  the  coming  council 
afforded  Leo  XIII.,  amid  his  many  cares,  incessant  labors, 
and  bitter  trials,  a  subject  of  unspeakable  joy.  He  had 
presented  to  the  archbishops  before  they  left  Rome  a  full- 
length  portrait  of  himself,  to  be  hung  in  the  hall  where 
they  were  to  deliberate,  so  that,  as  he  said  to  them,  he 
might,  in  a  manner,  preside  over  this  great  national  council 
— the  greatest  till  then  ever  held  in  the  New  World. 

*  "Acta,"  iv.  i. 

4JI 


442  LIFE  OF  LEO  XII I. 

It  will  not  seem  to  the  reader  to  be  here  out  of  place  to- 
review  briefly  the  history  and  condition  of  the  great  West- 
ern Republic  and  the  marvellously  rapid  growth  therein  of 
Catholicity. 

While  Joachim  Vincent  Pecci  was  still  in  his  childhood, 
the  Republic  of  the  United  States,  though  its  independence 
had  been  formally  recognized  by  Great  Britain,  had  still  ta 
contend  against  the  arrogant  ill-will  of  this  power.  British 
men-of-war  had  but  little  respect  for  the  stars  and  stripes, 
asserting  and  mercilessly  using,  on  every  sea,  the  right  of 
searching  American  vessels,  and  the  right  as  well  to  press 
their  crews  into  the  military  service  of  England.  He  was 
still  a  child  when  an  English  fleet  could  ascend  the  Poto- 
mac and  destroy  all  that  it  pleased  in  the  nascent  capital  of 
the  Union,  and  when  a  British  force  could  possess  itself  of 
Baltimore  and  hold  the  citizens  absolutely  at  its  mercy. 

During  the  two  first  decades  of  the  century  the  govern- 
ment of  Washington  had  scarcely  less  cause  to  be  dissatis- 
fied with  the  rulers  of  France.  It  required  no  little  mode- 
ration and  no  small  degree  of  tact  to  prevent  a  rupture  of 
intercourse  between  the  two  countries  and  the  breaking 
out  of  open  war. 

But  no  external  adversity  could  long  or  effectually 
check  the  development  of  a  free  people  amid  the  unbound- 
ed resources  of  a  country  which  embraced  a  great  portion 
of  a  mighty  continent,  and  was  destined  soon  to  extend  its 
limits  from  the  Atlantic  to  the  Pacific.  For  at  the  bottom 
of  that  people's  unparalleled  prosperity  lay  a  twofold  fact— 
they  were  a  religious  people,  among  whom,  though  divided 
into  various  and  hostile  denominations,  there  reigned  a  deep 
religious  sense,  pervading  not  only  private  life  but  influenc- 
ing and  regulating  public  life ;  and  they  were  a  practical 
people,  to  whom  the  fatherly  Providence  who  had  in  the 
mother-country  watched  over  the  birth  and  growth  of  all 
their  social  institutions  had  also  in  the  New  World  in- 
spired them  with  a  deep  love  of  the  same,  and  thereby 
preserved  them,  from  the  very  beginning  of  their  separate 
national  existence,  from  the  revolutionary  changes  which 


443 


444  LIFE  OF  LEO 

have  been  the  bane  of  the  Latin  races  on  Continental 
Europe,  as  well  as  in  their  great  colonies  beyond  the  seas. 

Americans  themselves,  who  wonder  at  the  decadence 
which  has  fallen,  like  a  blighting  frost  on  a  fruit-tree  in  the 
glory  of  its  full  bloom,  on  Spain,  Portugal,  and  their  colo- 
nial empires  at  their  highest  pitch  of  power  and  pride,  have 
never  accounted  to  themselves  for  the  difference  between 
their  own  progressive  prosperity  and  the  rapidly  progres- 
sive decay  of  countries  once  so  prosperous,  the  utter  down- 
fall of  peoples  once  so  mighty  and  so  enterprising. 

The  Anglo-Saxon  race  in  the  United  States  were  given 
the  conservative  instincts  which  arose  from  their  thorough 
knowledge  of  the  laws  and  institutions  which  had  been  in 
the  old  country  the  outcome  and  expression  of  their  whole 
social  life — a  life  continued  in  the  new,  and  there  expressed 
by  the  same  institutions,  the  same  laws,  the  same  forms  of 
government,  in  so  far  as  the  altered  circumstances  of  a  new 
existence  permitted  their  doing  so. 

The  laws,  the  manners,  customs,  and  governmental 
forms  of  a  nation,  from  its  early  birth  to  its  adult  state — if 
tlicse  are  hallowed  by  religion  and  in  conformity  with  the 
deep  moral  sense  of  the  people,  as  well  as  the  circum- 
stances of  clime  and  soil  and  geographical  surroundings, 
are  as  much  the  creation  of  Nature — that  is,  of  Him  who 
made  this  world  for  mankind,  and  who  directs  man  in  his 
progress  and  destiny — as  the  tree  is  the  growth  of  the  soil, 
and  its  fruit  the  joint  product  of  earth  and  air  and  sun. 

God  gave  the  Anglo-Saxon  race  at  home,  in  what,  in 
the  fullest  comprehensiveness  of  the  word,  we  may  call  the 
British  Constitution,  this  full  embodiment  of  the  character, 
the  tendencies,  the  needs  of  the  race ;  He  gave  them  with 
that  an  enlightened  love  and  a  deep  attachment  to  these 
forms  of  their  social  life. 

In  America  these  forms,  with  the  very  important  ex- 
ception of  the  feudal  proprietary  system  imported  into 
England  by  the  Normans,  were  planted  and  cherished  by 
the  early  British  colonists.  It  was  an  invasion  of  the  most 
sacred  constitutional  rights  of  the  people  of  the  colonies  by 


AMERICANS  PRACTICAL  AND  CONSERVATIVE.       445 

the  British  Parliament  which  led  to  the  War  of  Indepen- 
dence in  1775.  The  war,  miscalled  a  revolution,  was  en- 
tirely conservative.  Americans  fought  to  defend  their 
rights,  to  preserve  from  usurpation  or  infraction  the  dear- 
est privileges  of  British  freemen  and  citizens.  The  war 
over,  and  even  from  their  solemn  Declaration  of  Indepen- 
dence, their  governmental  forms,  their  laws,  the  entire 
framework  of  their  social  life,  remained  what  they  had  been. 
After  the  war  the  Constituent  Assembly  which  drew  up  the 
present  Constitution  only  tried  to  adjust  the  existing  forms 
of  State  governments  to  the  exigencies  of  a  Confederation 
or  Union,  bound  together  by  a  strong  federal  bond,  while 
leaving  to  the  component  States  or  sovereign  communities 
all  the  freedom  competent  with  the  existence,  the  unity, 
the  undivided  strength  of  one  national  life. 

The  Union  sacredly  preserved  everything  compatible 
with  the  condition  of  the  people  in  a  country  where  no 
king,  no  lords,  no  landed  aristocracy,  no  privileged  classes, 
no  feudalism  had  ever  existed.  Thus  all  the  precious  ele- 
ments which  belonged  to  the  public  and  private  life  of  the 
race  had  been  integrally  transferred  to  its  American  home  ; 
all  the  best  features  of  the  English  Constitution  and 
government  were  sacredly  preserved  or  modified  with  a 
reverent  hand  in  the  political  edifice  which  arose  after  the 
War  of  Independence.  This  inborn  knowledge  of  Ameri- 
can laws  and  institutions,  this  attachment  to  the  customs 
and  usages  of  the  fireside  and  the  forum,  this  deep-seated 
reverence  for  authority  and  order  wedded  to  freedom,  the 
American  citizen  and  his  sons  take  with  them  to  every  part 
of  their  native  continent  covered  by  the  flag  of  the  Union. 

Leo  XIII.  watched  with  deep  interest  the  development 
of  these  conservative  institutions.  Every  new  territory 
organized  from  out  the  wilderness  by  these  hardy  and  intel- 
ligent pioneers  was  modelled  on  the  time-honored  forms  of 
the  State  and  Federal  constitutions,  every  new  State  which 
asked  for  admission  into  the  Union,  was,  he  observed,  care- 
fully constructed  on  this  same  plan.  This  nation  is  a  bee- 
hive, made  up  of  cells  built  symmetrically  on  one  type,  as 


446  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

if  the  workmen,  like  the  bees,  were  guided  by  an  instinct 
antecedent  and  superior  to  the  mere  agency  of  reflective 
intelligence. 

They  have  been  directed,  guided,  protected  by  a  Power 
which  looked  far  beyond  the  present  age  and  the  needs  of 
even  a  continent  or  an  epoch.  They  have  been  inspired, 
impelled  to  build  for  all  time,  for  the  benefit,  the  instruction, 
the  happiness,  the  elevation  of  the  human  race  in  the  era 
which  is  now  dawning,  and  in  that  other  era  which  must 
come  for  the  human  family  when  the  Eternal  God  will 
think  it  time  to  realize  the  ideal  of  His  own  Son,  the  God- 
Man,  Christ. 

We  have  been,  therefore,  preserved  in  the  United  States 
from  the  frightful  convulsion  of  1789,  which,  in  destroying 
from  its  very  foundations  the  very  structure  of  French 
society,  unsettled  in  the  minds  of  men  the  very  intellectual 
principles  on  which  all  truth  depends,  and  deposited  in 
men's  hearts  and  men's  lives  the  germs  of  a  moral  licen- 
tiousness commensurate  with  the  libertinism  of  thought 
and  judgment  inculcated  by  Voltaire,  Jean  Jacques,  and 
the  French  Encyclopaedia. 

How  strange,  but  how  striking,  that  while  the  French 
statesmen  of  1789  were  thus  blowing  up  the  social  edifice 
reared  by  their  fathers,  and  inoculating  all  the  Latin  na- 
tions with  the  virus  of  their  own  political  and  religious 
madness,  the  assembled  representatives  of  the  American 
Union  should  have  been  laying  simultaneously  the  founda- 
tions of  a  system  which  preserved  all  that  was  best  in  the 
political  life  of  their  forefathers !  French  principles  and 
practices  have  been  a  social  plague  spreading  over  a  conti- 
nent, depopulating  cities  and  country  places,  and  leaving 
behind  desolation,  ruins,  death,  or  despair.  The  prin- 
ciples and  practices  of  the  American  statesmen  of  1789 
were  like  the  planting  the  Sacred  Tree  of  India,  which, 
spreading  wide  its  branches  and  sending  its  shoots  into  a 
congenial  and  blessed  soil,  has  covered  the  land  from  sea  to 
sea  with  communities  of  law-abiding,  God-fearing,  and  ever- 
progressive  freemen. 


BIRTH  OF  THE  CATHOLIC  HIERARCHY.  447 

Of  the  original  thirteen  States  which  formed  the  Ameri- 
can Union,  Leo  XIII.  could  see  that  one  only,  the  State 
of  Maryland,  contained  the  nucleus  of  a  Catholic  popula- 
tion. The  colony  which  bore  that  name  had  been  founded 
by  Catholic  emigrants,  with  a  small  admixture  of  Protes- 
tants. This  is  not  the  place  to  speak  of  the  perfect  free- 
.dom  of  conscience  proclaimed  by  Leonard  Calvert  and  up- 
held by  the  men  who  shared  his  fortunes ;  nor  of  the  per- 
.-secutions  to  which  these  Maryland  settlers  were  afterwards 
subjected.  In  the  Three  Kingdoms  at  home  intolerance 
feigned  supreme :  it  was  one  of  those  social  epidemics 
which  arise  among  a  people,  are  fed  by  the  ambient  air 
.and  the  qualities  of  soil  and  water  around,  preying  equally 
upon  men  of  all  classes.  The  epidemic  crossed  the  seas 
with  the  ships  of  the  mother-country  and  the  colonies,  and 
raged  along  the  Potomac,  the  Wycomico,  and  the  Chesa- 
peake, as  along  the  shores  of  Narragansett  and  Massachu- 
setts Bays. 

It  lasted,  with  periodical  outbreaks  of  fiercer  violence, 
till  the  War  of  Independence,  and  the  alliance  with  the 
France  of  Louis  XV.  and  Louis  XVI.  acted  like  a  thunder- 
storm which  clears  the  overclouded  skies  and  purifies  the 
.atmosphere  of  mephitic  vapors. 

Among  the  men  who  were  foremost  in  devotion  to  the 
Union  at  its  birth  were  the  ill-treated  Catholics  of  Mary- 
land. Charles  Carroll  of  Carrollton  pledged  the  largest 
fortune  to  the  cause  of  liberty ;  his  cousin,  the  Jesuit  John 
Carroll,  was  Benjamin  Franklin's  associate  in  a  fruitless 
.embassy  to  the  Catholic  colonists  of  Canada,  and  he  it  was 
whom,  at  Washington's  own  request,  Pius  VI.  appointed 
first  Bishop  of  Baltimore. 

So  began,  in  1789-90,  to  spring  up  the  Catholic  hier- 
archy, which  was  destined  ere  a  century  had  elapsed  to 
have  its  goodly  branches  in  every  State  and  Territory  of 
the  Union.  As  the  very  names  of  Carroll  and  of  Baltimore  * 

*  Leonard  Calvert,  Lord  Baltimore,  took  his  title  from  the  then  Parlia- 
mentary borough  of  that  name  situated  near  Cape  Clear  Island,  in  south- 
western Cork,  destroyed  by  Moslem  pirates  about  1635,  and  now  restored  to 


448  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

indicate,  the  children  of  the  Emerald  Isle  were  amongst 
the  first  precious  seeds  of  Catholicism  cast  into  the  virgin 
soil  of  free  America.  Catholicism,  coming  principally  in  the 
persons  of  Irish  exiles,  would  add  new  strength  to  the  reli- 
gious element  furnished  by  both  Cavalier  and  Puritan.  The 
easily-accounted-for  hatred  of  all  civil  authority  and  law 
begotten  in  the  Irish  heart  by  long  centuries  of  adminis- 
trative oppression  and  organized  judicial  injustice  would, 
when  a  quarter  of  a  century  later  the  great  tide  of  emigra- 
tion from  Ireland  set  in  steadily,  be  changed  into  love  of 
American  institutions  and  a  law-abiding  spirit  all  the  more 
lasting  that  they  are  founded  on  conscientious  conviction. 

And  so  in  the  New  World,  as  the  radical  and  anti- 
Christian  revolution  progressed  in  the  Old,  the  Christian 
religion  was  casting  such  deep  roots ;  faith  in  the  Redeemer 
worshipped  by  our  fathers,  and  the  loving  practice  of  His 
precepts,  bearing,  in  the  pure  air  and  bright  sunshine  of 
freedom,  fruits  unseen  before  on  earth — fruits  such  as  to 
gladden  tht  hearts  of  every  successor  of  the  sixth  Pius  and 
the  seventh,  from  Leo  XII.  to  Leo  XIII. 

No  less  important  an  element  to  the  population  of  the 
great  Republic  of  the  Western  world  has  been  contributed 
by  the  Teutonic  races  of  the  European  Continent.  The 
socialistic  and  radical  notions  imbibed  at  home  by  non- 
Catholic  Germans  die  out  after  a  few  years  of  sojourn  in 
the  free  and  healthy  air  of  a  country  where  there  is  room 
for  all,  and  where  the  fear  of  God  and  respect  for  es- 
tablished law  and  order  are  inculcated  at  every  fireside. 
So  perish  in  a  great  measure  the  Socialist  theories  brought 
over  from  France  by  the  comparatively  few  Frenchmen 
who  come  to  the  United  States  to  better  their  for- 
tunes and  then  return.  These  retain  their  flippancy,  their 
scepticism,  and  their  attachment  to  the  baneful  theories 
learned  from  their  doctrinaire  masters.  But  whereas  this 
last  fraction  of  the  quicksand  population  of  the  United 
States  contribute  little  to  the  hopeful  religious  future  of 

life,  industry,  and   prosperity  by  the  noble  munificence  of  the  Baroness 
Burdett-Coutts. 


OPE  KING  OF  THE   THIRD  PLENARY  COUNCIL.        44$ 

the  Republic,  the  German-Catholic  citizens  show  in  the 
country  of  their  adoption  the  same  admirable  qualities  dis- 
played in  the  Fatherland:  intelligence,  industry,  and 
habits  of  organization  for  all  purposes  of  beneficence,  edu- 
cation, and  religion,  which  render  them  one  of  the  most 
progressive,  as  they  are  one  of  the  most  conservative,  ele- 
ments of  the  new  nation. 

Religion,  therefore,  in  its  teaching  and  its  practice,  and 
in  the  two  great  races  which  are  its  professors  in  the 
United  States,  is  a  principal  factor  in  the  estimate  which 
the  Christian  historian  and  statesman  must  form  of  the 
great  future  that  lies  before  the  nation  founded  by  Wash- 
ington. 

The  month  of  November  came  at  length,  and  before  its 
first  week  was  ended  a  number  of  prelates  and  priests  were 
to  be  seen  around  the  cathedral  and  the  archbishop's  resi- 
dence. The  metropolitans  had  been  summoned  a  few  days 
in  advance  to  consult  with  the  apostolic  delegate  on  the 
rules  of  procedure  and  other  matters.  Two  of  these  pre- 
liminary conferences  were  held  on  the  6th  and  /th,  the  lat- 
ter in  the  Seminary  of  St.  Mary's,  where  the  Sulpicians 
placed  the  house  at  their  disposal  during  the  council. 
It  was  in  the  great  hall  of  this  institution,  which,  to- 
gether with  the  Jesuit  College  of  Georgetown,  is  the  most 
venerable  seat  of  learning  in  the  Union.  For  John  Car- 
roll, on  returning  to  Baltimore  as  its  first  bishop  toward 
the  close  of  the  last  century,  brought  with  him  a  band  of 
Sulpicians,  the  parents  of  a  long  and  venerated  line  of 
apostolic  men,  the  educators  and  models  of  the  clergy  of 
Maryland  and  the  neighboring  States. 

On  Sunday,  November  9,  the  great  council  opened,  a 
wonderful  spectacle  even  to  the  citizens  of  Baltimore,  who 
had  been  accustomed  to  these  periodical  assemblages  of 
the  Catholic  hierarchy  and  clergy.  On  the  Saturday  Leo 
XIII.,  without  waiting  for  the  message  which  the  council 
intended  to  send  him,  telegraphed  :  The  Holy  Father  sends 
his  blessing  to  the  fathers  of  the  Plenary  Council  which  begins 
to  day.-—  Louis  CARDINAL  JACOBINI,  To  which  Archbishop 


450  LIFK  OF  LEO  XIIL 

Gibbons  answered  :  Eighty-three  prelates  assembled  in  council 
return  thanks  to  your  Holiness  and  assure  you  of  their  duti 
fulness  and  devotion. 

Was  not  this  great  ocean  cable  a  type  of  that  Catholic 
faith  and  love  which  bind  continent  to  continent  and  unite 
the  most  distant  peoples  in  constant  and  loving  intercourse 
with  the  Holy  See,  the  Chair  of  Peter,  and  the  fatherly 
iieart  of  the  Pontiff  ? 

Then  there  was  a  telegram  sent  to  the  Archbishop  of 
New  York,  the  first  prelate  on  the  American  continent  on 
whom  the  Roman  purple  had  been  conferred:  "The  pre- 
lates of  the  Third  Plenary  Council,  by  unanimous  vote, 
salute  your  Eminence,  and  tender  to  you  the  expression  of 
their  most  profound  respect  and  sincere  attachment."  To 
which  the  cardinal  replied,  through  his  secretary,  that 
"  though  absent  in  body,  he  is  present  in  spirit,  and  ceases 
not  to  implore  the  benediction  of  Heaven  on  their  labors." 

Foremost  among  the  eighty-three  prelates,  the  fathers 
of  the  Church  in  the  United  States,  after  the  apostolic 
delegate,  was  the  venerable  Archbishop  Kcnrick,  of  St. 
Louis,  consecrated  coadjutor  to  Bishop  Rosati  in  1841,  and 
Bishop  of  St.  Louis  since  1843 — most  venerable  for  his  age, 
his  learning,  his  virtues,  and  his  great  labors  in  the  cause 
of  religion.  What  a  retrospect  was  his,  as  he  looked  back 
over  nearly  half  a  century  of  episcopal  toil  in  that  great 
West,  to  remember  how  what  was  one  immense  desert  fifty 
years  before,  traversed  only  by  the  wild  Indian,  the  trap- 
per, or  the  herds  of  buffalo,  was  now  covered  by  flourishing 
States  with  large  cities  and  an  ever-increasing  population ! 
And  then  he  could  remember  the  Councils  of  Baltimore 
held  before  1840,  when  the  United  States  had  only  one 
archbishop,  and  California  still  belonged  to  Mexico  and 
was  buried  in  the  slumberous  obscurity  of  the  Pacific 
coast. 

There,  too,  was  Monsignor  Osouf,  Vicar-Apostolic  of 
Northern  Japan,  who  seemed  to  have  come  there  to  read 
in  the  marvellous  growth  of  that  young  Church  of  America 
the  prophetic  forecast  of  what  would  be,  ere  another  cen- 


CLOSING  OF  THE  PLENARY  COUNCIL.  451 

tury  had  elapsed,  the  already  flourishing  Church  of  Austra- 
lia and  New  Zealand,  together  with  his  own  church  in 
Japan  and  the  persecuted  churches  of  Cochin  China  and 
China. 

Of  the  proceedings  of  the  council  we  need  not  say 
much  to  the  reader.  All  the  matters  therein  discussed  had 
been  printed  beforehand,  carefully  discussed  by  the  arch- 
bishops and  bishops,  assisted  by  a  body  of  theologians  and 
canonists  summoned  from  all  points  of  the  Union.  In  the 
decrees  thus  prepared  only  certain  amendments  and  correc- 
tions were  introduced.  But  as  all  this  was  to  remain  as 
the  law  of  the  American  Church,  every  item,  every  iota  was 
a  thing  maturely  to  be  weighed.  Then  the  work  and  the 
workmen  for  every  session  and  private  assemblage  had  been 
distributed  before  the  council  opened,  so  that  everything 
fell  at  once  into  its  own  place,  and  the  great  living  organ- 
ism began  its  functions  without  hesitation  or  jar  from  the 
first  hour  to  the  last. 

The  council  was  closed  on  the  /th  of  December.  It 
had  thus  lasted  a  month.  One  remarkable  circumstance 
connected  with  this  solemn  event  in  the  history  of  Ca- 
tholicism in  the  United  States  was,  as  the  historian  of  the 
council  relates,*  "  the  courtesy,  the  kindness,  and  the  hos- 
pitality extended  by  the  citizens  of  Baltimore,  even  by  such 
as  were  not  Catholics,  to  the  fathers  of  the  council  and  to 
the  clergymen  summoned  to  attend  it,  and  who  were  not 
few  in  number.  Nor  were  these  sentiments  manifested  by 
private  citizens  only,  but  by  the  city  authorities,  who 
showed  in  various  ways  their  respect  for  the  members  of 
the  council.  The  public  recorder  was  especially  kind,  plac- 
ing one  of  his  deputies  entirely  at  the  service  of  the  pre- 
lates. For  all  this  attention  the  delegate  apostolic  failed 
not  to  make  grateful  acknowledgment  at  the  end  of  the 
council." 

The  joint  pastoral  letter  issued  by  the  prelates,  and  pre- 
pared with  extreme  oare,  is  in  every  way  worthy  of  the 

*  "  Acta  et  Decreta,"  Iviii. 


452  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

source  from  which  it  proceeds.  Should  the  reader  judge 
that  what  we  have  said  in  this  chaptei  about  the  institu- 
tions and  character  of  the  American  people,  or  about  the 
wonderful  progress  of  Catholicism  in  their  midst,  is  exagger- 
ated, we  beg  him  to  peruse  the  following  extracts  : 

"  Full  eighteen  years  have  elapsed,"  so  this  pastoral 
letter  begins,  "  since  our  predecessors  were  assembled  in 
Plenary  Council  to  promote  uniformity  of  discipline,  to 
provide  for  the  exigencies  of  the  day,  to  devise  new  means 
for  the  maintenance  and  diffusion  of  our  holy  religion 
which  should  be  adequate  to  the  great  increase  of  the  Ca- 
tholic population.  In  the  interval  the  prelates,  clergy,  and 
faithful  have  been  taught  by  a  wholesome  experience  to 
appreciate  the  zeal,  piety,  and  prudence  that  inspired  the 
decrees  of  those  venerable  fathers,  and  to  listen  with  cheer- 
ful submission  to  their  authoritative  voice,  whether  uttered 
in  warning,  in  exhortation,  or  in  positive  enactment.  And 
the  whole  American  Church  deeply  feels  and  cordially  pro- 
claims her  gratitude  for  the  treasures  bequeathed  to  us  by 
their  wise  and  timely  legislation.  Its  framers,  in  great  part, 
have  gone  before  us  with  the  sign  of  peace,  and  now  sleep 
the  sleep  of  peace.  But  their  work,  besides  following  them 
to  the  dread  tribunal  of  the  great  Judge  to  plead  in  their 
behalf  and  insure  their  reward,  has  remained  upon  earth  as 
a  safe  guide  and  a  rich  blessing  for  the  clergy  and  people 
of  their  generation. 

"  Since  that  time,  however,  the  body  of  our  clergy  and 
religious  has  grown  to  wonderful  dimensions,  our  Catholic 
institutions  have  been  multiplied  tenfold,  with  a  corre- 
sponding increase  in  the  number  of  our  faithful  laity.  The 
territory,  likewise,  over  which  they  are  spread  has  been 
greatly  enlarged.  The  land  of  the  far  West,  that  once 
was  desolate  and  impassable,  through  God's  providential 
mercy  now  rejoices  and  flourishes  like  the  lily.  Under 
His  guiding  hand  it  has  been  taught  to  bud  forth  and 
blossom  and  rejoice  with  joy  and  praise.  The  wilderness 
has  exchanged  its  solitude  for  the  hum  of  busy  life  and 
industry;  and  the  steps  of  our  missionaries  and  Catholic 


JOINT  PASTORAL  LETTER. 


453 


settlers  have,  invariably  either  preceded  or  accompanied  the 
westward  progress  of  civilization.  Forests  have  given  way 
to  cities,  where  Catholic  temples  re-echo  the  praises  of  the 
Most  High.  ...  In  view  of  this  great  progress  of  our  holy 
re.igion,  ...  it  has  been  judged  wise  and  expedient,  if 
not  absolutely  necessary,  to  examine  anew  the  legislation 
of  our  predecessors.  .  .  . 

"  Such,  too,  has  been  the  express  wish  and  injunction 
of  our  Holy  Father  Leo  XIII.,  happily  reigning,  to  whom, 
as  Supreme  Pontiff  and  the  successor  of  the  Prince  of  the 
Apostles,  by  inherent  right  belongs  the  power  of  convok- 
ing this  our  Third  Plenary  or  National  Council,  and  ap- 
pointing, as  he  has  graciously  done,  an  apostolic  delegate 
to  preside  over  its  deliberations." 

Speaking  of  the  religious  errors  against  which  the  coun- 
cil has  to  provide  the  safeguards  and  remedies,  the  pastoral 
letter  says : 

"  We  have  no  reason  to  fear  that  you,  beloved  brethren, 
are  likely  to  be  carried  away  by  these  or  other  false  doc- 
trines condemned  by  the  Vatican  Council,  such  as  material- 
ism, or  the  denial  of  God's  power  to  create,  to  reveal  to 
mankind  His  hidden  truths,  to  display  by  miracles  His 
mighty  power  in  this  world,  which  is  the  work  of  His 
hands.  But  neither  can  we  close  our  eyes  to  the  fact  that 
the  teachers  of  scepticism  and  irreligion  are  at  work  in  our 
country.  .  .  .  Could  we  rely  fully  on  the  innate  good  sense 
of  the  American  people,  and  on  that  habitual  reverence  for 
God  and  religion  which  has  been  so  far  their  just  pride  and 
glory,  there  might  seem  comparatively  little  danger  of  the 
general  diffusion  of  these  wild  theories  which  reject  or  ig- 
nore Revelation,  undermine  morality,  and  end  not  unfre 
quently  by  banishing  God  from  His  own  creation.  But 
when  we  take  into  account  the  daily  signs  of  growing  un- 
belief, and  see  how  its  heralds  not  only  seek  to  mould  the 
youthful  mind  in  our  colleges  and  seats  of  learning,  but  are 
also  actively  working  amongst  the  masses,  we  cannot  but 
shudder  at  the  dangers  which  threaten  us  in  the  future. 
When  to  this  we  add  the  rapid  growth  of  that  false  civiliza- 


454  LII'E  OF  LEO  xin- 

tion  which  hides  its  foulness  under  the  name  of  enlighten- 
ment— involving,  as  it  does,  the  undisguised  worship  of 
Mammon,  the  anxious  search  after  every  ease,  comfort,  and 
luxury  for  man's  physical  well-being,  the  all-absorbing  desire 
to  promote  his  material  interests,  the  unconcern,  or  rather 
contempt,  for  those  of  his  higher  and  better  nature — we 
cannot  but  feel  that  out  of  all  this  must  grow  heartless 
materialism,  which  is  the  best  soil  to  receive  the  seeds  of 
unbelief  and  irreligion.  .  .  .  The  first  thing  to  perish  will 
be  our  liberties.  For  men  who  know  not  God  or  reli- 
gion can  never  respect  the  inalienable  rights  which  man 
has  received  from  his  Creator.  The  state,  in  such  case, 
must  become  a  despotism,  whether  its  power  be  lodged  in 
the  hands  of  one  or  of  many." 

This  is  very  forcibly  stated.  How  truly  it  applies  to 
what  is  happening  at  this  moment  in  France  and  in  Italy  ! 
Coming  to  the  iniquitous  and  hypocritical  war  made  in  Eu- 
rope on  Catholics  because  of  the  definition  of  Pontifical 
Infallibility,  the  letter  says : 

"The  governments  by  which,  three  centuries  ago,  the 
new  tenets  of  Luther,  Zwingli,  and  Calvin  had  been  im- 
posed on  reluctant  peoples  by  the  sword,  were  the  first,  in- 
deed the  only  ones,  to  again  unsheathe  it  against  Catholic 
believers.  ...  It  was  their  purpose  to  exterminate  by  de- 
grees the  Catholic  hierarchy,  and  to  replace  it  by  a  servile 
priesthood.  .  .  . 

"  But  the  Catholics  of  Prussia,  clergy  and  people,  while 
proving  themselves  most  devoted  and  faithful  to  their 
country's  laws,  stood  up  like  a  wall  of  adamant  against 
the  tyranny  of  its  rulers.  .  .  .  The  struggle  has  now  last- 
ed fourteen  years,  but  the  very  friends  of  this  persecuting 
legislation  have  been  driven  at  last  to  acknowledge  that  it 
has  proved  to  be  a  miserable  failure ;  .  .  .  they  have  had 
to  fall  back  on  the  patriotism  of  the  Catholic  body  to  stay 
the  threatening  march  of  Socialism  and  Revolution.  In 
Switzerland,  too,  the  persecution  has  yielded  to  the  policy 
of  mildness  and  conciliation  adopted  by  our  Holy  Father 
Leo  XIII, 


PATRIOTIC  SPIRIT  OF  THE  FATHERS. 

"...  A  Catholic  finds  himself  at  home  in  the  United 
States,  for  the  influence  of  the  Church  has  been  constantly 
exercised  in  behalf  of  individual  rights  and  popular  liber- 
ties. And  the  right-minded  American  nowhere  finds  him- 
self more  at  home  than  in  the  Catholic  Church,  for  nowhere 
else  can  he  breathe  more  freely  that  atmosphere  of  divine 
truth  which  alone  can  make  him  free. 

"  We  repudiate  with  equal  earnestness  the  assertion  that 
we  need  to  lay  aside  any  of  our  devotedness  to  our  Church 
to  be  true  Americans,  and  the  insinuation  that  we  need  to 
abate  any  of  our  love  for  our  country's  principles  and  in- 
stitutions to  be  faithful  Catholics. 

"To  argue  that  the  Catholic  Church  is  hostile  to  our 
great  Repubc  bliecause  she  teaches  that  'there  is  no  power 
but  Jrom  God'  (Rom.  xii.  i)  ;  because,  therefore,  back  of 
the  events  which  led  to  the  formation  of  the  Republic,  she 
sees  the  providence  of  God  leading  to  that  issue,  and  back 
of  our  country's  laws  the  authority  of  God  as  their  sanc- 
tion— this  is  evidently  so  illogical  and  contradictory  an  ac- 
cusation that  we  are  astonished  to  hear  it  advanced  by  per- 
sons of  ordinary  intelligence.  We  believe  that  our  coun- 
try's heroes  were  the  instruments  of  the  God  of  nations  in 
establishing  this  home  of  freedom.  To  both  the  Almighty 
and  His  instruments  we  look  with  grateful  reverence.  .  .  . 

"  No  less  illogical  would   be  the  notion  that  there  is 

O 

aught  in  the  free  spirit  of  our  American  institutions  in- 
compatible with  perfect  docility  to  the  Church  of  Christ. 
The  spirit  of  American  freedom  is  not  one  of  anarchy  or 
of  license.  It  essentially  involves  love  of  order,  respect 
for  rightful  authority,  and  obedience  to  just  laws.  There 
is  nothing  in  the  character  of  the  most  liberty-loving  Ame- 
rican which  could  hinder  his  submission  to  the  divine  au- 
thority of  our  Lord,  or  the  like  authority  delegated  by 
Him  to  His  Apostles  or  His  Church."  * 

Coming  to  speak  of  Leo  XIII. ,  the  assembled  prelates 
show  that  they  can  appreciate  his  great  qualities : 

*  "  Acta  et  Decreta  Cone.  Plen,  Bait.  Tcrtii,"  pp.  Ixviii.-lxxvi. 


456  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

"  While  enduring  with  the  heroism  of  a  martyr  the  trials 
which  beset  him,  and  trustfully  awaiting  the  Almighty's  day 
of  deliverance,  the  energy  and  wisdom  of  Leo  XIII.  are  felt 
to  the  ends  of  the  earth.  He  is  carrying  on  with  the  gov- 
ernments of  Europe  the  negotiations  which  promise  soon 
to  bring  peace  to  the  Church.  In  the  East  he  is  prepar- 
ing the  way  for  the  return  to  Catholic  unity  of  the  mil- 
lions whom  the  Greek  schism  has  so  long  deprived  of  com- 
munion with  the  See  of  Peter,  and  he  is  following  the  pro- 
gress of  exploration  in  lands  hitherto  unknown  or  inacces- 
sible with  corresponding  advances  of  Catholic  missions. 
To  the  whole  world  his  voice  has  gone  forth  again  and 
again  in  counsels  of  eloquent  wisdom,  pointing  out  the 
path  of  truth  in  the  important  domains  of  philosophy  and 
history ;  the  best  means  of  improving  human  life  in  all  its 
phases,  individual,  domestic,  and  social  ;  the  ways  in  which 
the  children  of  God  should  walk,  that  all  flcsJi  may  sec  tlic 
salvation  of  God. 

"  But  in  all  the  wide  circle  of  his  great  responsibility 
the  progress  of  the  Church  in  these  United  States  forms 
in  a  special  manner  both  a  source  of  joy  and  an  object  of 
solicitude  to  the  Holy  Father.  With  loving  care  his  pre- 
decessors watched  and  encouraged  her  first  feeble  begin- 
nings. They  cheered  and  fostered  her  development  in  the 
pure  atmosphere  of  freedom  when  the  name  of  Carroll 
shone  with  equal  lustre  at  the  head  of  her  new-born  hier- 
archy and  on  the  roll  of  our  country's  patriots.  .  .  . 

"  In  all  this  astonishing  development,  from  the  rude 
beginnings  of  pioneer  missionary  toil,  along  the  nearer 
and  nearer  approaches  to  the  beauteous  symmetry  of  the 
Church's  perfect  organization,  the  advance,  so  gradual  and 
yet  so  rapid,  has  been  safely  guided  in  the  lines  of  Catholic 
and  apostolic  tradition.  ..."  * 

Among  the  subjects  on  which  the  Council  expended 
most  care  and  thought  was  that  of  education — education 
in  its  widest  and  most  comprehensive  sense :  the  education 


THE  NATIONAL  CATHOLIC  UNIVERSITY.  457 

of  the  clergy  and  that  of  the  laity  in  all  their  grades.  This 
was  also  the  Holy  Father's  chief  care.  The  creation  of 
a  great  National  University  for  Catholics,  like  the  Laval 
University  for  the  Canadian  confederation — a  great  school 
where  the  Catholic  youth  of  the  Republic,  young  clerics 
and  young  laymen  alike,  should  find,  together  with  the 
surest  safeguards  for  faith  and  morality,  the  very  best 
masters  in  every  department  of  knowledge  which  the 
country  could  supply  or  who  could  be  tempted  to  come 
from  abroad — such  was  the  ideal.  It  was  no  sooner 
known  to  the  public  than  a  noble  Catholic  young  lady, 
Miss  Mary  Gwendoline  Caldwell,  of  New  York,  at  once 
gave  $300,000  toward  the  divine  work  contemplated. 
Her  friend  and  banker,  Mr.  Eugene  Kelly,  gave  $50,000. 
Others  all  over  the  Union  gave  generously.  In  the  fu 
ture,  we  doubt  not,  there  will  be  no  lack  of  generosity. 
As  we  write  upwards  of  a  million  of  dollars  has  already 
been  subscribed. 

A  spacious  property  has  been  purchased  not  far  from 
the  city  of  Washington,  and  the  foundations  of  one  great 
branch  of  the  future  University  have  been  laid — a  high- 
school  for  clerical  studies,  to  which  young  candidates  for 
the  priesthood  who  have  finished  the  ordinary  curriculum 
in  the  seminaries,  and  who  unite  superior  talent  with  su- 
perior virtue,  can  come,  there  to  spend  some  three  or  four 
years  more  in  perfecting  themselves  in  mental  philosophy, 
theology,  and  their  kindred  sciences,  as  well  as  in  such  of 
the  physical  and  mathematical  sciences  as  may  enable  the 
students  issuing  from  this  school  to  take  their  place  any- 
where by  the  side  of  the  most  accomplished  scholars,  or 
to  consecrate  their  acquired  knowledge  to  teaching  and 
training  others. 

It  is  a  noble  beginning.  May  God  prosper  it  and  bless 
all  those  whose  benefactions  forward  its  progress ! 

This  is  the  place  to  state  more  explicitly  than  we  have 
done  that  the  Holy  Father  himself  took  especial  pains  in 
elaborating  the  preparatory  schema  of  all  matters  to  be 
treated  in  the  council.  This  sclievia  was  discussed  with  the 


LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

archbishops  in  Rome  during  the  preceding  November, 
1883.  The  matter  of  higher  education  Leo  XIII.  particu- 
larly insisted  on. 

He,  therefore,  took  a  warm  personal  interest  in  this 
council  and  its  labors,  as  in  a  work  with  which  he  was 
identified.  Even  now  he  reads  and  studies  with  the  great- 
est care  all  that  pertains  to  the  great  National  University. 

While  the  archbishops  were  in  Rome  during  the  au- 
tumn of  1883,  the  Holy  Father  had  strongly  pressed  upon 
their  attention  his  project  of  creating  for  the  higher  educa- 
tion of  Eastern  Catholics  a  great  school  in  Athens  and 
another  in  Constantinople.  They  had  promised  him  to 
make  an  appeal  to  their  people  in  favor  of  this  apostolic 
enterprise. 

During  the  council,  however,  Archbishop  Gibbons  was 
requested  by  the  fathers  to  write  to  the  Pope  and  obtain 
fuller  information  regarding  these  two  proposed  schools  or 
universities.  We  here  give  that  part  of  Leo  XII I. 's  an- 
swer which  relates  both  to  the  American  National  Univer- 
sity and  to  the  proposed  schools  at  Athens  and  Constanti- 
nople : 

"  It  was  a  great  satisfaction  to  us  to  learn  that  you  and 
your  brother-bishops  have  undertaken  the  noble  work  of 
building  as  soon  as  possible  a  Catholic  University  in  Ameri- 
ca. Carried  out  by  the  initiative,  the  advocacy,  and  the 
watchful  care  of  the  episcopal  body,  this  work  will  render 
great  service  both  to  religion  and  to  your  country;  it  will 
shed  lustre  on  the  Catholic  name  and  will  conduce  to  the 
advancement  of  literature  and  the  sciences. 

"  We  are  well  aware  what  great  expense  you  must  incur 
in  order  to  carry  out  your  design,  and  have,  therefore,  ab- 
stained from  urging  you,  Venerable  Brother,  to  send  us 
the  pecuniary  help  which  we  so  earnestly  besought  of  you 
last  year  while  you  were  in  Rome,  and  that  for  an  object 
which  is  also  of  great  importance.  We  mean  the  purpose 
we  entertain,  and  which  we  press  on  you  with  the  greatest 
insistance,  of  bringing  back  the  Eastern  peoples  to  the 
Catholic  fold,  We  think  that  the  establishment  of  schools 


CARDINALS  GIBBONS  AND  TASCHEREAU.  459 

both  in  Athens  and  in  Constantinople  would  help  more 
than  anything  else  \_maxime\  to  hasten  this  result. 

"  Now,  if  the  other  matters  already  mentioned  so 
naturally  fill  your  mind  and  employ  your  care,  Venerable 
Brother,  we  desire,  nevertheless,  that  you  do  not  altogether 
forget  this  other  subject  we  have  been  just  explaining,  and 
that  you  be  convinced,  should  our  purpose  come  to  have  a 
happy  result,  that  it  will  greatly  contribute  to  the  glory  of 
God,  to  the  honor  and  increase  of  the  Catholic  Church, 
and  that  it  will  redound  not  a  little  to  the  credit  of  your 
own  generosity  and  that  of  the  American  people."  * 

Americans  will  understand  the  fatherly  solicitude  which 
the  Supreme  Shepherd  of  Christ's  flock  entertains  for  the 
conversion  of  these  Eastern  peoples  who  have  strayed 
away  from  the  fold ;  they  will  help  him  to  create  these 
great  Catholic  schools  at  Athens  and  Constantinople. 
Their  charity  will  only  bring  a  greater  blessing  on  their 
own  National  University,  the  nursery  of  all  true  learning 
for  the  America  of  the  future. 

The  American  Church  has  just  contracted  another  debt 
of  gratitude  toward  Leo  XIII.  In  the  consistory  of  June 
7,  1886,  he  raised  to  the  Roman  purple  the  Archbishop  of 
Baltimore,  who  had  so  worthily  represented  the  Holy  See 
in  the  Third  National  Council.  In  him  and  in  Archbishop 
Taschereau,  of  Quebec,  American  scholarship  thus  receives 
a  supreme  acknowledgment. 

*  "  Acta  et  Decreta,"  Ixiv.  Ixv. 


CHAPTER  XXIX. 

LEO   XIII.  AND   GERMANY. 

OF  all  the  enormous  difficulties  inherited  from  his 
predecessor,  no  one  was  of  such  magnitude  as 
that  which  resulted  from  the  position  of  the  Church  in 
Germany.  It  has  been  generally  believed  among  non- 
Catholics  that  Prussia  and  the  newly-constituted  German 
Empire  (1871-73),  in  enacting  the  rigorous  "May  Laws" 
and  other  proscriptive  measures  against  Catholics,  and  in 
suppressing  Monastic  Orders,  fining,  imprisoning,  and  ban- 
ishing bishops  and  priests,  were  only  acting  in  self-defence 
against  the  machinations  of  the  Jesuits,  and  protecting  the 
national  government  and  authority  against  the  practical 
assumption  of  supreme  and  unlimited  jurisdiction  supposed 
to  be  implied  in  the  Pontifical  Infallibility  decreed  by 
the  Council  of  the  Vatican  in  1870  (July  18).  That  no 
such  assumption  of  jurisdiction  was  implied  in  the  doctrine 
of  infallibility  is  now  recognized  by  all  scholars,  by  all  edu- 
cated persons,  indeed,  who  have  taken  the  trouble  to  ex- 
amine the  doctrine  itself.  That  there  never  existed  any 
machinations  of  Jesuits,  or  any  sort  of  organized  opposition 
among  German  Catholics  to  the  creation  of  the  empire  or 
against  its  security  or  permanence,  is  an  unquestioned  and 
unquestionable  fact  of  history. 

That,  however,  at  the  first  official  tidings,  in  1867-68,  of 
the  intention  of  the  court  of  Rome  to  convene  a  general 
council,  a  certain  number  of  high-placed  and  influential 
Bavarian  Catholics  and  others  did  organize  a  conspiracy, 
with  the  sole  purpose  of  setting  public  opinion  in  Germany 
in  direct  and  violent  opposition  to  the  assembling  of  the 
council,  is  equally  unquestionable. 

Two  men  among  these  are  principally  responsible  for 
the  persecutions  to  which  German  Catholics  are  subjected 


BEGINNING  OF  THE  GERMAN  DIFFICULTY.         461 

since  1871,  and  these  are  Dr.  Joseph  Ignatius  von  Dollinger 
and  Prince  Chlodwig  Hohenlohe.  The  former,  as  scholars 
know,  had  been,  down  to  1860,  a  foremost  defender  of  the 
doctrines  of  the  Catholic  Church  and  the  prerogatives  of  the 
Pontificate,  as  well  as  a  notorious  assailant  of  the  Reforma- 
tion and  the  Reformers.  Since  1860  Dr.  Dollinger's  atti- 
tude toward  the  Church  and  the  Papacy  underwent  a  great 
change.  This  is  evident  in  the  first  work  issuing  from  his 
pen  after  that  year.* 

In  1868  these  two  men  were  so  situated  as  to  be 
able  to  use  the  whole  power  of  the  Bavarian  government 
in  opposing  the  projected  assembling  of  the  council  and  in 
influencing  the  other  Catholic  courts  for  the  same  purpose. 
On  June  29  of  that  year  Pius  IX.  issued  the  bull  conven- 
ing the  council  to  open  in  the  Vatican  basilica  on  Decem- 
ber 8  of  the  following  year. 

The  venerable  Pontiff's  "Sacerdotal  Jubilee" — the  fif- 
tieth anniversary  of  his  elevation  to  the  priesthood — fell  on 
the  nth  of  April,  1869.  It  afforded  the  entire  Catholic 
world  a  very  natural  opportunity  to  testify  its  love  for  one 
whose  sufferings  and  kindly  virtues  had  won  him  the  deep 
sympathy  of  his  children  in  every  land.  The  movement 
for  making  this  celebration  a  most  enthusiastic  and  uni- 
versal one  originated  in  Germany — in  Bavaria  itself,  by  a 
strange  coincidence  with  the  Dollinger-Hohenlohe  conspi- 
racy. Beginning  in  Bamberg,  these  filial  manifestations 
spread  all  over  Germany,  and  from  Germany  extended  to 
every  country  where  Catholics  are  found.  From  the  palace 
to  the  shepherd's  hut  went  forth  pilgrims  with  such  offer- 
ings as  they  could  bring  to  the  feet  of  the  Common  Father. 
The  King  of  Prussia,  the  present  emperor,  who  reverenced 
in  Pius  IX.  the  guardian  of  all  great  and  sound  principles, 
sent  him  on  this  occasion  a  vase  of  precious  material  and 
rarest  workmanship. 

Meanwhile  a  diplomatic  note  signed  by  Prince  Hohen- 

*  DSllinger,  Kirche  und  Kirchen.  Papsthum  und  Kirchenstadt.    Munich, 
I86l. 


462 


LIFE  OP  LEO  Xlll. 


lolic,  Prime  Minister  of  Bavaria,  and  addressed  to  all  the 
representatives  of  that  kingdom  abroad,  was  circulating  in 
all  foreign  courts.  It  was  said  in  it:  "The  only  dogmatic 
thesis  which  Rome  desires  to  have  decided  by  the  council, 
and  which  the  Jesuits  in  Italy  and  Germany  are  now  agitat- 
ing, is  the  question  of  the  infallibility  of  the  Pope.  This 
pretension,  once  become  a  dogma,  will  have  a  wider  scope 
than  the  purely  spiritual  sphere,  and  will  become  evidently 
a  political  question  ;  for  it  will  raise  the  power  of  the  Sove 
reign  Pontiff,  even  in  temporal  matters,  above  all  the 
princes  and  peoples  of  Christendom." 

This  bugbear  of  "  Infallibility  "  was  just  the  very  thing 
to  create  alarm  and  excitement  in  the  minds  of  non-Catho- 
lic rulers  and  statesmen,  who  had  only  very  confused  no- 
tions of  doctrinal  matters,  but  who  were  very  decided  in 
their  hatred  of  anything  that  threatened  the  supremacy  of 
the  state,  the  omnipotence  and  infallibility  of  the  civil 
power. 

It  was  so  held  up  to  the  governmental  and  the  popular 
minds  as  to  excite  the  national  and  anti-papal  feeling  also. 
We  all  know  how  mighty  a  part  the  natural  dislike  of  foreign 
interference  or  jurisdiction  of  any  kind  had  in  gaining  to 
Luther  the  support  of  the  German  princes,  and  in  obtain- 
ing for  the  tyrannic  measures  of  Henry  VIII.  the  approval 
of  his  English  Parliament. 

From  1868  till  long  after  1873  the  most  powerful  organs 
of  public  opinion  in  Germany,  following  in  the  path  opened 
by  the  Augsburg  Gazette,  inspired  by  Dr.  Dollinger,  began 
a  journalistic  crusade  against  infallibility,  the  Papacy,  and 
the  Jesuits.  It  is  a  sad  story.  But  to  those  who  have 
studied  carefully  the  events  of  the  last  fifty  years,  none 
of  the  startling  moral  phenomena  of  the  age  will  be  more 
familiar  than  the  fatal  facility  with  which  public  opinion  is 
created  by  journalism  on  any  given  topic,  even  when  the 
current  thus  set  in  motion  is  one  which  runs  contrary  to 
truth  and  to  justice. 

The  Franco  German  war  came  to  add  its  astonishing 
and  tremendous  catastrophes  to  the  excitement  of  political 


HISTORY  OF  THE  "  A'UL  TURKAMPF?'  463 

and  theological  passions  caused  by  the  definition  of  the  doc- 
trine of  Papal  Infallibility.  The  Piedmontese  usurpers  of 
the  States  of  the  Church  had  all  along  been  the  faithful 
and  energetic  allies  and  co-operators  of  Dollinger  and 
Hohenlohe  in  arousing  against  the  Pope  and  the  Church 
the  storm  which  was  at  its  highest  in  September,  1870. 

In  the  first  Imperial  Parliament  assembled  in  Berlin  un- 
der the  sceptre  of  the  Protestant  Hohenzollerns,  if  Prince 
Bismarck  was  High  Chancellor,  Prince  Hohenlohe  was  Vice- 
President.  The  Jesuits  and  the  Monastic  Orders  had  been 
sedulously  painted  in  Germany  as  the  causes  of  the  temporal 
decay  and  spiritual  ruin  which  it  was  said  and  believed  had 
fallen  on  Italy  and  rendered  necessary  the  occupation  of 
Rome  by  Victor  Emmanuel  and  the  deposition  of  Pius  IX. 
from  even  his  little  remnant  of  temporal  power.  The  Jesu- 
its and  the  Monastic  Orders  were  assiduously  held  up  by 
the  anti-Catholic  press  of  Germany  as  opposed  to  the  new 
empire,  as  the  foes  of  German  unity,  as  those  who,  having 
given  to  the  youth  of  Catholic  countries  a  wrong,  unpro- 
gressive,  and  anti-national  education  in  the  past,  should 
in  the  future  be  deprived  of  all  faculty  of  training  youth 
and  placed  outside  the  pale  of  the  common  law. 

Dr.  Dollinger  and  his  followers — and  he  had  very  many 
powerful  friends  and  disciples  in  Germany,  men  whom  he 
had  educated  and  who  looked  up  to  him  with  veneration — 
now  formed  themselves  into  what  is  known  as  the  "  Old- 
Catholic  "  church,  which  allied  itself  with  the  Jansenists  of 
Holland,  with  the  Church  of  England,  and  sought,  but 
sought  in  vain,  to  obtain  from  the  schismatic  Greeks  the 
right  hand  of  religious  fellowship.  As  these  lines  are  writ- 
ten it  is  known  that  this  movement  has  ended  in  utter 
failure. 

But  in  the  enthusiasm  with  which  the  Protestant  world 
hailed  the  birth  of  the  new  empire,  in  the  dense  mist  of  the 
prejudices  and  passions  evoked  by  the  definition  of  infalli- 
bility and  the  downfall  of  the  Pope's  temporal  power,  this 
"  Old-Catholic  "  church,  assembled  in  council  with  the  Jan- 
senist  prelates  and  priests  of  Utrecht,  with  the  representa- 


464  L1*E  OF  LEO  XI  11. 

tivcs  of  the  Protestant  Church  of  England  and  of  the  old 
Eastern  heresies,  loomed  up  to  the  eyes  of  sympathizers 
like  something  very  great,  very  portentous,  if  not  prophetic 
of  the  utter  ruin,  spiritual  as  well  as  temporal,  of  the 
Church  of  Rome. 

At  any  rate,  in  Germany,  and  in  particular  within  the 
kingdom  of  Prussia,  the  campaign  begun  against  the  Cath- 
olic Church  and  the  Papacy  soon  after  the  inauguration  of 
the  empire  and  the  close  of  the  war  with  France  was  rep- 
resented as  one  begun  in  the  name  and  with  the  forces  of 
civilization  against  the  unprogressive  and  reactionary  forces 
of  Catholicism.  This  was  the  way  that  the  conflict  inaugu- 
rated in  Prussia  against  the  Church  and  the  principles  sup- 
posed to  be  involved  on  both  sides  was  described  by  the 
one  famous  term  Kulturkampf  ("  civilization-conflict  "), 
used  by  Prince  Bismarck,  and  thenceforward  applied  to  his 
long  struggle  with  the  Church  and  the  Holy  See. 

The  crusade  of  the  German  press  against  the  Religious 
Orders,  against  the  Jesuits  particularly,  had  been  growing 
ever  in  fierceness  all  through  1871  and  up  to  June,  1872, 
when  a  law  was  passed  suppressing  the  Society  of  Jesus 
and  "  other  affiliated  orders."  It  was  mercilessly  carried 
out.  On  January  9,  1873,  Dr.  Falk,  the  Prussian  Minister 
of  Public  Worship,  who  was,  whether  unconsciously  or 
knowingly,  in  all  this  and  the  subsequent  prescriptive  legis- 
lation, really  doing  the  work  of  the  secret  societies,  intro- 
duced into  the  Prussian  Chambers  a  more  comprehensive 
law,  made  still  more  so  in  the  following  May. 

These  laws,  suppressing  all  the  Religious  Orders  except 
those  engaged  in  hospital  work,  and  banishing  their  mem- 
bers from  the  kingdom,  were  called  "  the  May  Laws."  Dr. 
Kalk  added  to  and  completed  his  code  till  it  left  not  one 
vestige  of  religious  liberty  to  nearly  nine  and  a  half  million 
Prussian  Catholics  out  of  a  total  population  of  between 
twenty-seven  and  twenty-eight  millions.  The  laws  were  a 
despotic  code  of  Caesarism,  asserting  the  omnipotence  of 
the  state  both  in  the  civil  and  the  ecclesiastical  order. 
They  regarded  not  only  the  Catholic  Church  but  the  Pro- 


THE  TYRANNICAL  "  MA  ¥  LA  WS."  465 

testant  Evangelical  Church  of  Prussia,  aiming  at  securing 
to  the  lay  members  of  the  latter  greater  liberty  from  the 
control  of  their  clergy,  while  proposing  to  substitute,  in 
the  case  of  Catholics,  a  national  training  and  a  national 
organization  to  the  "  Ultramontanism  "  so  hateful  to  Ger- 
man rationalists  and  radicals.  This  was  intended,  accord- 
ing to  the  law-makers,  to  free  German  Catholics  from  the 
despotism  of  Rome.  Episcopal  authority  was  also  to  be 
reduced  to  a  minimum  under  the  pretext  of  giving  the 
inferior  clergy  their  due  share  of  freedom.  And  the  edu- 
cation of  candidates  for  the  priesthood,  like  that  of  all 
Prussian  youth,  was  to  be  laicized,  taken  away  from  episco- 
pal and  clerical  hands.  The  state  was  made  the  sole  judge 
of  the  fitness  of  priests  for  any  ecclesiastical  office  whatso- 
ever ;  and  the  very  candidates  for  holy  orders  were  bound 
to  pass  a  state  examination  and  obtain  a  state  certificate 
as  a  necessary  condition  before  ordination.  The  semina- 
ries were  all  closed. 

We  might  omit  further  details,  and  have  only  given 
the  foregoing  to  enable  the  reader  to  appreciate  what  we 
stated  in  beginning  this  chapter,  that  nothing  in  the  crush- 
ing burden  of  care  transferred  in  February,  1878,  from 
the  shoulders  of  Pius  IX.  to  those  of  Leo  XIII.,  equal- 
led in  magnitude  the  difficulties  inherent  in  the  Prussian 
and  German  question.  But  it  is  instructive  to  learn  more 
of  this  terrible  conflict. 

During  the  seven  years  which  preceded  his  own  eleva- 
tion to  the  Papal  Chair,  Cardinal  Pecci,  from  his  watch- 
tower  in  Perugia,  had  followed  with  intense  and  sympa- 
thetic interest  the  noble  struggle  of  the  German  Catholics 
—bishops,  priests,  and  laymen — against  the  overwhelming 
power  of  a  state  wielding  the  mightiest  military  host  of 
modern  ages,  and  backed  in  its  warfare  against  Catholicism 
by  the  combined  forces  of  the  secret  societies  and  the  influ- 
ential and  unscrupulous  press  controlled  by  the  lodges  or 
salaried  by  the  state. 

It  was  a  spectacle  which  was  all  the  more  interesting 
to  the  sagacious  mind  of  the  prelate-statesman  of  Perugia 


466  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

that  he  saw  on  the  side  of  the  German  Catholics  one  great 
element  of  resistance,  endurance,  and  final  success  which 
his  own  Catholic  Italy  lacked  in  her  death-struggle  with  the 
Revolution — organisation. 

The  tendency  to  organize,  and  the  faculty  for  doing  it 
thoroughly,  seem  innate  in  the  Teutonic  race  ;  this  time 
they  proved  the  salvation  of  the  Catholic  Church  in  that 
empire.  Both  in  the  Prussian  Chambers  and  in  the  Im- 
perial Parliament  the  Catholic  members  formed,  from  the 
beginning,  a  body  so  numerous  and  so  compact,  so  well  led 
and  disciplined,  that  they  made  themselves  felt  as  a  third 
power  between  the  government  party  and  the  opposition. 
Their  able  and  eloquent  leader,  Von  Windthorst,  compelled 
all  along  the  admiration  and  respect  of  all  sections  of  the 
legislature.  But  the  Catholics  of  Germany  had  not  waited 
for  the  stormy  years  following  1870  to  assemble  and  organ- 
ize and  cheer  each  other  on  in  every  path  that  could  leid 
them  to  a  perfect  union  of  minds  and  hearts,  to  a  real  pro- 
gress in  intellectual  and  moral  culture. 

Ever  since  the  first  terrible  convulsion  of  1848  had 
warned  all  Europe  that  the  Revolution  was  upon  them,  the 
German  Catholics  had  made  it  a  rule  to  assemble  yearly  in 
congress.  The  twenty-first  Catholic  Congress  met  in  May- 
ence  in  September,  1871. 

They  then  and  there,  under  the  inspiration  of  such 
lovers  of  true  nobility  as  Bishop  Von  Ketteler,  took  every 
precaution  which  Christian  wisdom  and  charity  as  well  as 
the  purest  patriotism  could  suggest  to  perfect  still  more 
their  work  of  organizing  all  the  Catholic  zeal  and  activities 
of  the  Fatherland  against  the  evils  which  were  agitating 
and  convulsing  Christendom. 

The  noble  part  which  the  Catholics  of  Prussia,  of  all 
Germany  enrolled  under  the  leadership  of  King  William, 
had  taken  in  the  Franco-Prussian  war,  was  a  living,  a  re- 
cent memory.  The  Catholic  soldiers  had  been  foremost 
in  bravery  and  loyalty  ;  the  Catholic  chaplains — and  none 
among  these  more  so  than  the  Jesuits — had  been  heroically 
devoted  and  self-sacrificing ;  so  had  the  Sisters  of  Charity 


HEROIC  SPIRIT  OF  THE  GERMAN  CATHOLICS.       467 

in  hospital  and  on  the  battle-field.  These  memories  were 
a  perpetual  inspiration  to  Von  Windthorst  and  his  asso- 
ciates. 

When  bishops  and  priests  were  imprisoned,  disfran- 
chised, banished,  the  Catholic  laity  were  true  to  them- 
selves and  to  God,  without  ever  doing  an  act  or  saying  a 
word  which  might  lay  them  open  to  the  suspicion  or  ac- 
cusation of  disloyalty  or  disaffection  toward  their  country 
or  its  institutions.  They  held  their  yearly  Congress,  calm- 
ly, resolutely  surveying  together  the  situation  in  which  the 
"  May  Laws "  left  each  diocese,  each  parish,  and  devising 
the  most  effective  means  which  patriotism  and  religion 
could  suggest  for  keeping  their  suffering  brethren  togeth- 
er, for  providing  a  remedy  to  every  ill  their  zeal  could 
reach,  for  keeping  faith  and  hope  and  trust  in  Providence 
alive  in  the  hearts  of  their  countrymen. 

We  resume  the  thread  of  our  narrative,  and  return  to 
1872-73. 

To  the  protestations  made  in  the  Prussian  Chambers 
by  the  Catholic  members  of  Parliament,  that  the  laws  of 
the  kingdom  guarantee  expressly  and  solemnly  the  full 
liberty  of  the  Catholic  religion,  the  government  and  the 
Parliament  answered  by  at  once  repealing  these  laws.  Pius 
IX.,  for  whom  in  preceding  years  the  Emperor  William  had 
professed  an  esteem  full  of  reverence,  remonstrated  with 
his  Majesty  against  acts  which  were  not  only  violations  of 
the  Prussian  law  but  of  the  treaties  concluded  with  the 
Holy  See ;  the  emperor  replied,  in  terms  doubtless  dictated 
to  him  by  the  stern  chancellor,  that  the  Prussian  Catholics 
were  only  required  to  obey  the  existing  laws,  and  that  obey 
they  must. 

The  Archbishop  of  Cologne,  Primate  of  Prussia,  the 
bishops  of  Miinster,  Breslau,  and  Paderborn,  together  with 
Archbishop  Ledochowski,  of  Gnesen  and  Posen,  became 
the  special  objects  of  the  prime  minister's  severity,  as  they 
were  the  foremost  in  resisting  the  passing  and  execution  of 
the  obnoxious  laws.  And  so  things  went  on  from  bad  to 
worse,  and  from  worse  to  the  very  extremity  of  ill  among 


468  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

the  Catholics  of  Prussia,  till  in  the  Catholic  Congress  held 
at  Wiirzburg  on  September  9,  1877,  it  was  said  that  "the 
churches  of  Germany  all  along  the  Rhine  Valley,  from 
Constance  to  Rotterdam,  had  not  a  single  bishop  left !  " 
Every  one  of  them  had .  been  removed  by  death  or  by  the 
hand  of  the  persecutor.  In  1873,  when  the  "  May  Laws" 
began  to  be  in  full  operation,  the  nine  millions*  of  Prus- 
sian Catholics  had  8,439  clergymen  engaged  in  ministering 
to  their  spiritual  wants.  In  1881,  of  that  number  1,125 
parish  priests  and  645  assistants  had  either  died  or  been 
imprisoned  or  banished  the  country,  while  their  places  re- 
mained vacant.  Add  to  these  1,770  secular  priests  the 
members  of  the  Monastic  Orders,  who  in  peaceful  times 
are  the  zealous  and  efficient  helpmates  of  the  parochial 
clergy,  and  the  reader  will  be  able  to  judge  of  the  religious 
destitution  thus  created  ;  644,697  souls  in  601  parishes  hail 
not  a  single  clergyman  left  to  them,  while  584  parishes 
with  1,501,994  souls  were  in  a  great  measure  destitute  of  all 
priestly  ministrations. 

While  the  Falk  legislation  was  as  yet  in  its  preparatory 
stage,  it  was  sought  either  to  obtain  the  tacit  acquiescence 
of  the  court  of  Rome  to  the  proposed  measures,  or  to  find 
a  specious  pretext  for  a  diplomatic  rupture.  Cardinal 
Hohenlohe,  a  brother  of  Prince  Chlodwig,  was  appointed 
ambassador  of  the  German  Empire  near  the  Holy  See. 
Doubtless  the  cardinal  accepted  this  mission  in  the  hope 
of  preventing  greater  misfortunes ;  the  Pope,  at  any  rate, 
refused  to  receive  him.  And  so  all  diplomatic  intercourse 
ceased  between  the  Vatican  and  Berlin.  In  the  consistory 
of  December,  1872,  Pius  IX.  animadverted  severely  on  the 
suppression  of  the  Monastic  Orders  in  Germany,  on  the 
harshness  and  downright  cruelty  to  which  their  members 
had  been  subjected,  on  the  violation  of  laws  enacted  with 
the  formal  and  solemn  concurrence  of  the  Holy  See.  This 
allocution,  if  an  incentive  or  a  pretext  were  needed  for  fur- 
ther and  extreme  measures  of  spoliation  and  persecution, 

*8,7n,535. 


THE  "  OLD-CATHOLIC"  CHURCH.  469 

very  opportunely  served  the  purpose  of  Prussian  statesman- 
ship. All  the  blame  was  cast  on  the  unyielding  and  uncon- 
ciliating  temper  of  the  Vatican  by  what  had  begun  to  be 
called  "  the  reptile  press  "  of  Germany — that  is,  by  the  most 
powerful  journals  in  the  pay  of  the  government,  and  slav- 
ishly devoted  to  the  advocacy  of  all  its  measures.  It  was, 
in  reality,  the  Kulturkampf  press,  whose  sole  aim  was  to 
hold  up  the  Papacy,  the  Catholic  Church,  and  their  insti- 
tutions to  hatred  and  scorn,  and  to  make  them  responsible 
for  the  very  wrongs  done  them  in  the  persons  of  the  Catho- 
lic millions  of  Germany. 

And  the  non  Catholic  world,  for  the  most  part,  espoused 
the  views  of  the  "  reptile  press,"  and  sided  with  the  all-pow- 
erful oppressor. 

Dr.  Dollinger  and  his  associates  in  the  "  Old-Catholic  " 
movement  lost  no  time  in  profiting  by  the  favorable  oppor- 
tunity thus  created  for  them  ;  the  Catholic  body  in  Prussia 
and  elsewhere  had  indignantly  and  unanimously  spurned 
every  threat  or  seduction  used  to  induce  them  to  become 
a  "  national  "  church  independent  of  the  centre  of  Catholic 
unity.  The  "  Old  Catholics  "  at  once  demanded  to  be  re- 
cognized as  the  legal  Catholic  body,  as  the  national  Catho- 
lic Church  of  the  empire.  In  October,  1873,  Prussia  recog- 
nized the  legal  title  of  Dr.  Reinkens,  lately  consecrated  as 
bishop  of  the  "  Old-Catholic "  church  by  the  Jansenist 
schismatics  of  Holland.  He  was  appointed  to  receive  a 
regular  salary  from  the  state. 

It  is  known  what  active  sympathy  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land gave  to  the  Old-Catholic  faction,  which,  in  the  minds 
of  representative  men  in  Great  Britain,  promised  to  sepa- 
rate from  the  Papacy  the  great  body  of  German  Catholics. 
In  London,  as  in  Berlin,  those  who  were  most  hopeful  of 
such  a  result  forgot  that  our  age  has  seen  many  would-be 
imitators  of  Martin  Luther,  every  one  of  whom  has  ended 
in  ignominious  failure. 

This  is  the  age  for  reunion,  not  for  separation  ;  for  re- 
conciliation among  Christians,  not  for  further  division. 

To  the    Piedmontese    masters  of   Rome  and  rulers  of 


LIFE  OF  LEO  XIIL 

Italy,  whose  examples  in  the  Peninsula  the  German  gov- 
ernment were  beginning  to  imitate  and  to  surpass,  this  war- 
fare against  the  Church,  and  the  rupture  of  all  relations 
with  the  Vatican,  seemed  a  fitting  season  for  drawing  the 
bonds  of  friendship  with  the  Imperial  government  closer. 
The  King  of  Italy  visited  Berlin,  and  the  Emperor  William 
visited  Milan.  It  was  known  all  through  these  unhappy 
times,  or  it  was  strongly  suspected,  that  the  conservative 
Hohenzollern  monarch,  influenced  by  his  admirable  and 
gentle  empress,  had  a  lurking  respect  for  the  Roman  Pon- 
tiff and  for  that  Roman  Church  which  Guizot  called  "  the 
greatest  school  of  reverence  which  ever  existed."  He  did 
not,  therefore,  pay  his  return  visit  at  Rome  and  the  Quiri- 
nal,  but  at  Milan,  the  once  capital  of  the  fairest  southern 
province  ever  conquered  and  held  by  Germany. 

Certain  it  is  that  these  visits  were  hailed  by  the  anti- 
Catholic  press  on  both  sides  of  the  Alps,  on  both  sides  of 
the  Atlantic  indeed,  as  indicative  of  a  purpose  hostile  to 
the  Church  and  the  Papacy. 

These  hopes  or  expectations,  in  so  far,  at  least,  as  a 
formal  schism  in  Germany  was  concerned,  were  doomed  to 
disappointment.  English  common  sense  itself  reprobated 
the  cruel  and  illiberal  policy  of  the  Prussian  government. 

"  The  coercion  by  force  of  a  clergy  conscientiously  and 
irrevocably  pledged  to  resistance  is  not  justifiable,  and  is 
still  less  likely  to  prove  possible."  So  wrote  the  greatest  of 
British  newspapers.  "  It  may  be  necessary  for  the  German 
government  to  make  the  experiment  of  reforming  the  Ro- 
man Catholic  Church  within  their  country;  and  if  they  could 
succeed  it  would  be  an  admirable  achievement.  But,  for 
our  part,  we  think  it  more  likely  that  they  will  fail."  * 

The  Catholic  Congress  which  met  in  Mayence  in  mid- 
September,  1871,  gave  an  earnest  of  the  heroic  temper  of 
its  members  and  of  that  of  the  millions  whom  they  repre- 
sented. They  protested  against  the  occupation  of  Rome,  by 
a  power  hostile  to  the  Church,  as  a  robbery  which  no  law 

*  The  London  Tinu-s,  Wednesday,  December  11,  1873. 


NA  TIONAL  ORGANIZA  TION  OF  GERMAN  CA  THOLICS.     4  7  I 

can  validate,  no  lapse  of  time  render  lawful ;  they  protested 
against  the  acts  of  every  temporal  government  which  pre- 
tends to  dictate  to  the  Church  what  doctrine  she  must 
teach,  which  opposes  obstacles  to  the  teaching  of  the  Church 
or  encourages  rebellion  against  her  doctrine  or  her  discipline ; 
they  protested  against  the  recent  encroachments  on  their 
own  liberties  and  rights.  They  protested  as  well  against 
the  tyrannical  and  oppressive  conduct  of  the  Protestant  and 
rationalistic  majority  in  Switzerland  toward  their  Catholic 
brethren.  There  was  a  noble  and  manly  address  drawn  up 
and  sent  to  the  latter. 

In  every  act  and  utterance  of  the  Congress  there  was 
evidence  of  that  free  and  generous  spirit  which  was  resolved 
to  demand  to  the  full  the  legitimate  measure  of  civil  and 
religious  liberty,  and  to  suffer  for  right  and  conscience  all 
that  might  could  do.  They  accepted  a  plan  for  binding 
into  one  grand  national  society  of  education  school-teachers, 
clergy,  and  parents.  The  Catholic  press  was  organized  after 
the  same  fashion.  Catholic  journalists  inadequately  sup- 
ported were  to  receive  aid  from  a  common  fund.  Pens, 
purses,  hands,  heads,  and  hearts  were  to  unite  in  one  sa- 
cred cause.  Every  effort  and  utterance  thenceforth  was  to 
be  worthy  of  it.  Against  the  advance  of  the  so-called 
"  German  science  "  all  were  asked  and  pledged  to  combine 
by  promoting  true  Catholic  science.  There  was  a  solemn 
denunciation  of  the  Italian  "  Law  of  Guarantees  "  because 
these  guaranteed  nothing,  and  there  was,  underlying  them, 
the  inadmissible  assumption  that  the  state  has  a  right  to  say 
to  the  Church  under  what  conditions  she  shall  exercise  her 
office,  prepare,  appoint,  and  regulate  her  ministers  in  their 
functions.  The  occupation  of  Rome  is  an  international  wrong, 
iv  hie h  all  Catholics  are  bound  to  denounce  and  oppose  until  it 
is  done  away  with. 

So  spoke  Catholic  Germany  in  1871.  So  continued  the 
same  bold,  courageous  voice  to  thrill  Europe  year  after 
year,  rising  clearer  and  more  stirring  as  the  wrongs  inflicted 
on  Catholics  increased.  Such  accents  moved  the  Catholic 
heart  so  powerfully  that  in  1874  the  government  forbade 


472 


LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 


peremptorily  the  reassembling  of  these  Congresses.  But 
though  the  public  meetings  of  the  representatives  of  the 
Catholic  body  were  thus  prohibited;  the  school  and  press 
associations  continued  their  unceasing  labors  in  private. 
The  organization  was  so  strong,  so  perfect,  so  extensive, 
and  animated  by  so  determined  a  spirit,  that  the  utmost 
efforts  of  the  police  and  detective  forces  proved  unavailing 
to  prevent  brother  from  assisting  brother  in  a  struggle  where 
the  highest,  dearest  interests  were  at  stake. 

We  shall  speak  further  on  of  the  negotiations  under- 
taken by  Leo  XIII.  to  put  a  stop  to  these  persecutions  and 
to  mitigate  the  lot  of  the  German  Catholics.  But  the  reader 
can  better  judge  of  the  persistency  of  the  Prussian  policy 
and  of  its  results  by  the  following  passage  of  a  letter  from 
the  Archbishop  of  Cologne,  written  on  behalf  of  his  brother- 
bishops  in  answer  to  an  address  of  sympathy  from  the 
Plenary  Council  of  Baltimore.  It  is  dated  March  10, 
1885: 

44  Unhappily,"  the  letter  says,  "  we  are  far  from  seeing 
the  end  of  our  afflictions.  The  chain  of  the  May  Laws, 
which  fetters  the  rights  and  the  liberty  of  the  Church,  still 
weighs  upon  us;  our  seminaries  and  our  monasteries  still 
remain  suppressed ;  thousands  of  parishes  are  still  desolate 
or  deprived  of  their  pastors.  The  Religious  Orders  and  con- 
gregations are  still  expelled  and  banished  from  their  na- 
tive land.  The  discipline  of  the  Church,  the  discharge  of 
the  episcopal  office,  and  the  administration  of  ecclesiasti- 
cal property  are  subject,  in  many  respects,  to  the  manage- 
ment and  control  of  the  government,  which  claims,  more- 
over, to  manage  the  schools.  Ecclesiastical  students,  and 
even  priests,  are  bound  to  serve  in  the  army.  The  arch- 
bishops of  Prussia  still  languish  in  exile  under  a  foreign  sky. 
We  are  thus  deprived  of  many  precious  graces  which,  in 
the  midst  of  the  struggle  and  the  danger,  we  need  to  aid 
us  to  preserve  intact  and  inviolable  our  unity  and  constancy 
to  the  end." 

But  in  the  very  year  of  Leo  XIII.'s  accession  to  the 
Pontificate  the  leading  Conservative  journal  of  the  Protes- 


RESUL  TS  OF  THE  "  KUL  TURK  AM PF"  4  73 

tant  Evangelical  press  sums  up  in  the  following  words  the 
results  of  the  Kulturkampf,  or  pretended  battle  for  civiliza- 
tion and  progress,  carried  on  against  Catholicism,  but  ex- 
tending its  ravages  to  all  positive  religion  : 

"  The  Evangelical  Church  has  suffered  grievously  from 
the  Kulturkampf.  .  .  .  Indifference  and  hatred  toward  the 
Church  and  toward  Christianity  have  increased  to  an  as- 
tounding degree,  and  the  unchristianized  masses  of  the 
lower  orders  have  enrolled  themselves  by  thousands  in  the 
army  of  social  democracy.  As  a  result  of  the  putting  aside 
of  the  Church  and  of  Christianity,  and  of  the  impious  doc- 
trine that  '  everything  is  nature,'  which  has  been  the  out- 
come, immorality  has  increased  and  the  number  of  crimes 
is  multiplied  to  an  appalling  extent.  The  bonds  of  social 
order  are  being  dissevered,  because  the  moral  factors,  au- 
thority and  religion,  have  been  long  since  set  aside  and  re- 
placed by  rationalistic  commercialism ;  so  that  we  find  our- 
selves in  the  face  of  the  most  serious  complications  in  the 
social,  moral,  and  ecclesiastical  order. 

"  Of  all  the  promises  which  were  made  at  the  beginning 
of  the  Kulturkampf  not  one  has  been  realized ;  not  that 
only,  but  the  reverse  has  happened  in  every  direction.  In- 
stead of  peace  there  are  everywhere  disorder  and  confu- 
sion." * 

Of  course  the  forcible  education  of  all  the  Catholic  youth 
of  Prussia  during  the  seven  last  years  of  the  reign  of  Pius 
IX.  must  have  had  most  disastrous  effects.  And  these 
must  have  gone  on  increasing  over  another  generation  of 
young  people  during  the  seven  first  years  of  the  reign  of 
Leo  XIII.  No  man  could  more  surely  calculate  these  re- 
sults than  one  of  his  cultivated  intelligence  and  long  expe- 
rience. 

But  finding  himself  helpless  to  bring  about  a  sudden 
change  in  Prince  Bismarck's  baneful  and  (even  to  Germany) 
suicidal  policy  of  persecution,  he  showed  invincible  patience 

*  The  journal  Reichsbote  for  October,  1878,  quoted,  from  Count  Mur, 
phy's  "  Chair  of  Peter." 


474 


f.IFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 


and  consummate  tact  in  accepting  the  advances  of  the  all- 
powerful  high  chancellor,  as  well  as  in  conducting  the  ne- 
gotiations b^hrun.  But  while  waiting  and  winning  every 
possible  advantage  offered  to  him,  the  wise  and  enlightened 
Pontiff,  from  the  very  first  months  of  his  reign,  set  about 
the  slow  work  of  surely  winning  the  confidence  and  respect 
of  both  the  emperor  and  his  chancellor  by  a  masterly  series 
of  encyclical  letters,  containing  the  fundamental  lessons  of 
social  wisdom  so  needful  to  Germany  in  face  of  Socialism, 
Rationalism,  and  Naturalism  ;  so  necessary  to  all  govern- 
ments and  peoples  in  the  present  age  of  revolution. 

It  is  certain  that,  when  the  first  news  of  his  election 
was  announced,  it  was  asked  whether  Leo  XIII.  would  not 
succeed  in  settling  the  "  German  difficulty."  His  reputa- 
tion as  a  diplomat,  a  statesman,  and  a  scholar  greatly 
favored  him  in  Germany. 

It  is  a  most  instructive  lesson  to  hear  from  Prince  Bis- 
marck's own  lips  an  account  of  the  advances  made  by  him 
to  the  new  Pope.  As  we  already  know,  one  of  the  first  acts 
of  the  Holy  Father  was  to  write  to  the  Emperor  William, 
notifying  his  Majesty  of  his  election  and  expressing  his 
deep  regret  at  the  rupture  between  Germany  and  the  Holy 
See.  Now,  what  says  the  German  chancellor  ? 

"  Never  did  we  lose  sight  of  the  fact  that  the  '  May 
Laws'  were  'laws  of  conflict,'  but  that,  nevertheless,  their 
object  was  to  lead  to  peace.  Now  [in  April,  1886]  the  pub- 
lic journals  tell  me  that  since  the  battle  of  Olmiitz  no  such 
a  disgraceful  concession  has  been  asked  of  Prussia  [as  the 
revision  of  the  '  May  Laws'  and  the  closing  of  the  Kultur- 
kampf  ].  They  cast  up  to  me  that  I  am  going  to  Canossa. 
But  in  the  same  discourse  [of  1875]  m  which  I  said  we 
.would  not  go  to  Canossa — and  this  I  repeat  to  day — I  ex- 
plained clearly  what  should  be  understood  by  going  to 
Canossa.  .  .  . 

"  I  added  that  the  government  owed  it  to  their  Catholic 
subjects  to  persist  in  seeking  a  means,  a  way  of  regulating 
in  the  most  conciliating  manner  the  borders  which  separate 
the  domain  of  the  temporal  from  that  of.  the  spiritual 


PRINCE  BISMARCK  AND  LEO  Xf/I.  475 

power,  the  limits  necessary  for  the  interior  peace  of  the 
realm. 

"  The  hope  entertained  meanwhile  that  a  Pontiff  more 
disposed  to  peace  might  appear  was  realized  three  years 
after  this  last  discourse  of  mine  ;  and  I  remember  what  Leo 
XIII.  said,  soon  after  his  accession,  in  one  of  his  encyclicals* 
in  1878: 

" '  Thus  we  shall  continue  to  labor  for  the  German  na- 
tion in  the  midst  of  obstacles  of  every  kind  ;  nor  shall  our 
soul  ever  know  rest  until  peace  be  restored  to  the  Church 
in  that  country.' 

"  I  believe,  my  lords,  that  the  passages  I  here  recall 
are  sufficient  to  show  how  baseless  is  the  assertion  that  we 
ever  considered  these  laws  of  conflict  against  the  Church 
as  a  basis  on  which  to  build  up  the  durable  future  of  the 
Empire  or  of  Prussia. 

"  In  pursuance  of  the  purpose  I  was  just  explaining  to 
you,  I  began,  as  soon  as  the  present  Pope  ascended  the 

*  No  such  words  are  found  in  the  encyclicals  of  1878.  But  in  the  let- 
ter addressed  by  the  Pope,  on  December  24  of  that  year,  to  the  Archbishop 
of  Cologne  are  these  eloquent  words :  "  As  it  was  .  .  .  our  purpose  from 
the  beginning  of  our  Pontificate,  so  we  endeavored  to  induce  both  sove- 
reigns and  nations  to  live  at  peace  and  friendship  with  the  Church.  As 
to  you,  Venerable  Brother,  you  are  aware  that  we  at  an  early  day  bent 
our  mind  on  obtaining  for  the  noble  German  nation,  after  settling  all  their 
differences,  the  blessings  and  fruits  of  a  lasting  peace  ;  nor  is  it  less  known 
to  you  that,  in  so  far  as  we  are  concerned,  no  pains  were  spared  to  attain 
an  end  so  glorious  and  so  worthy  of  our  care.  Whether,  however,  what  we 
have  undertaken  and  are  trying  to  bring  about  shall  have  a  successful 
issue,  He  knoweth  from  whom  cometh  every  blessing  and  who  hath  given 
us  this  ardent  zeal  and  wish  for  peace. 

"  But,  no  matter  how  things  turn  out,  we  must  yield  to  the  divine  will, 
continuing  as  long  as  life  lasts  to  cherish  tlie  same  intense  zeal  and  to 
persevere  in  the  fulfilment  of  the  duty  put  upon  us.  ...  Wherefore  none 
of  the  obstacles  opposed  to  us  on  every  side  shall  divert  us  from  the  pur- 
pose of  seeking  the  salvation  of  all,  and  therefore  of  your  nation.  For  our 
heart  shall  never  be  able  to  rest  so  long  as,  10  the  great  loss  of  souls,  we  shall 
see  the  bishops  of  the  Church  condemned  (as  if  guilty)  or  banished  from 
their  country,  the  priestly  ministry  surrounded  by  a  network  of  difficulties, 
religious  communities  and  pious  congregations  dispersed,  and  the  fain- 
ing  of  youth,  not  even  excepting  young  clerics,  withdrawn  from,  the  autho- 
rity and  watchfulness  of  the  bishops  "  ("  Acta,"  ii.  167,  168). 


476  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

throne,  to  open  publici  juris  negotiations  with  Monsignor 
Masella  [the  Nuncio  in  Munich]  which  gave  hope  of  a  good 
issue,  and  which  lasted  till  Cardinal  Franchi  became  Secre- 
tary of  State  [March  9,  1878],  and  were  afterwards  sus- 
pended." * 

It  is  evident  from  this  extract  not  only  that  Prince  Bis- 
marck was  anxious  for  peace  and  more  than  willing  to 
withdraw  from  the  untenable  position  "on  the  domain  of 
the  spiritual  power "  in  which  the  May  Laws  placed  the 
Prussian  government — the  Imperial  government  of  Ger- 
many, in  fact — in  the  eyes  of  the  civilized  world.  Further 
on  in  the  same  memorable  discourse  he  frankly  admits  that 
the  results  of  the  Kulturkampf  were,  if  not  disastrous 
to  the  state,  at  least  unworthy  of  the  conflict  itself: 
"  When  the  action  of  the  government  and  the  administra' 
tion  on  the  clergy  is  limited  to  our  becoming  the  rivals  of 
the  ecclesiastical  authorities  and  of  the  Pope  himself,  then 
we  fall  into  the  chief  blunder  of  the  May  Laws,  which  vi- 
tiated this  entire  system  of  legislation.  We  began  a  great 
strategic  movement  with  mighty  forces  and  very  trifling  re- 
sults ;  we  only  created  strife  and  opposition,  because,  in 
my  judgment,  we  aimed  at  achieving  what  was  impossible. 
This  strategy  against  the  clergy  will  always  bring  about 
unpleasantness  and  leave  the  government  in  the  rear  among 
the  ranks  of  the  minority." 

Thus,  then,  we  know  that  in  the  war  against  the  Catho 
lie  Church,  as  in  that  against  France  a  few  years  previously, 
Bismarck  had  pushed  into  the  enemy's  territory  with  over* 
whelming  forces,  occupying  the  very  heart  of  the  country, 
and  compelling  peace  at  any  price,  in  so  far  as  he  could 
make  the  Church  surrender  everything  but  what  the  di- 
vine law  alone  forbade  to  yield.  But  he  found  that  in 
ravaging  the  "  domain  of  the  Church  "  he  was  ruining  the 
clearest  interests  of  the  monarchy.  And,  wise  man  as  he  is, 
he  only  wished  for  a  safe  and  honorable  means  of  retreat- 

*  Translated  from  the  full  report  of  Prince  Bismarck's  speech  in  the 
Prussian  House  of  Lords,  April  14,  1886. 


TffE  FEAR  OF  "GOING  TO  CANOSSA."  477 

ing  from  a  position  it  was  a  crime  in  morals  and  a  blunder 
in  politics  to  have  ever  occupied. 

At  any  rate,  in  1880  the  very  political  and  financial 
necessities  of  the  German  chancellor  compelled  him  to 
make  some  steps  toward  conciliation.  Concessions  were 
made  in  the  parliamentary  sessions  of  1880  and  1881. 
In  January  of  the  latter  year  Von  Windthorst  introduced 
into  the  Lower  Prussian  Chamber  a  bill  relieving  priests 
from  all  punishment  for  saying  Mass  or  administering  the 
sacraments.  Both  the  law  thus  introduced  and  the  penal 
law  it  modified  remind  one  forcibly  of  the  legislation  of  the 
two  first  Stuarts  in  England  and  Ireland,  as  well  as  of  the 
unrepealed  Penal  Laws  which  weighed  on  Irish  Catholics 
just  a  century  ago.  Englishmen  at  present  are  rather 
ashamed  of  this  unchristian  and  barbarous  code  ;  and  one 
may  well  wonder  that  in  the  last  quarter  of  the  nineteenth 
century  a  man  of  Prince  Bismarck's  enlightened  mind  and 
liberal  professions  should  not  have  hesitated  to  employ 
such  weapons  as  the  Falk  Laws,  or  that  a  nation  like  the 
Prussians,  so  proud  of  their  culture  and  their  rank  in 
Europe,  should  have  applauded  or  even  tolerated  such  a 
policy.  It  was  taking  up  the  antiquated,  blood-stained, 
and  rusty  instruments  of  coercion  and  persecution  used  by 
Elizabeth  and  the  Stuarts,  by  Cromwell  and  his  Common- 
wealth, and  by  the  successors  of  William  III.  down  to  our 
own  times.  But  as  these  weapons  failed  in  Ireland  in  their 
immediate  purpose  of  conversion  or  perversion  of  a  people 
— failed,  indeed,  in  everything  excepting  in  exterminating 
an  ancient  race  and  sowing  their  hearts  with  bitter  memo- 
ries— so  did  they  and  must  they  fail  in  Germany.  And  so 
must  they  in  Poland. 

As  the  pacific  and  conciliatory  policy  of  Leo  XIII. 
gained  ground  in  Germany,  and  the  power  of  the  Catholic 
party,  the  Centre,  both  in  the  Prussian  and  in  the  Imperial 
Parliament,  became  more  necessary  to  the  government,  the 
tendency  to  measures  of  greater  leniency  became  more  ap- 
parent. But  the  European  press,  the  so-called  liberal  press 
especially,  had  early  asked  the  question  whether  the  Ger- 


478  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

man  emperor  and  his  chancellor  would  not  go  to  Canossa, 
as  had  done  the  Emperor  Henry  IV.  in  the  time  of  the 
seventh  Gregory.  The  question  was  repeated  as  a  watch- 
word and  must  have  had  no  little  influence  on  a  man  of 
Bismarck's  temper. 

Be  that  as  it  may,  on  June  5,  1883,  a  very  important  law 
called  the  Church  Bill  was  introduced  by  HcrrVon  Putt- 
kamer,  who  had  taken  Dr.  Falk's  place  in  the  Prussian 
ministry.  The  bill  contained  six  clauses  modifying  the 
most  odious  and  oppressive  features  of  the  existing  legisla- 
tion. It  was  passed  by  224  votes  against  107. 

The  very  partial  mitigation  thus  obtained  was  accepted 
by  Catholics  only  as  some  slight  evidence  on  the  part  of  the 
government  of  a  disposition  to  yield.  But  although  Dr. 
Falk  had  resigned,  and  some  of  the  laws  which  bore  his 
name  had  been,  nominally  at  least,  repealed,  the  May  Laws 
remained  like  a  sword  suspended  over  the  head  of  every 
Catholic  man,  woman,  and  child  in  Prussia,  nay,  in  all  the 
German  Empire. 

We  have  seen,  by  the  letter  of  the  Archbishop  of  Co- 
logne quoted  above,  and  dated  two  years  after  the  passing 
of  this  law,  how  deplorable  in  1885  was  the  condition  of 
Prussian  Catholics.  The  testimony  of  the  Catholic  Union  of 
the  Rhincland,  assembled  in  congress  in  May,  1884,  leaves 
no  room  to  question  the  sad  condition  of  their  Church. 
"  The  Archbishops  of  Cologne  and  Posen  have  been  su- 
perseded," the  Union  state  in  a  brief  summary  of  their 
grievances,  "  and  the  other  Prussian  prelates  are  liable 
at  any  moment  to  be  dealt  with  in  like  manner.  Upwards 
of  one  thousand  parishes  are  bereaved.  In  the  archdio- 
cese of  Posen  priests  are  still  deprived  of  their  salaries.  .  .  . 
All  the  seminaries  for  priestly  education  have  been  closed. 
The  Royal  Ecclesiastical  Court  continues  to  exist,  as  a 
monument  of  the  oppression  of  Catholics.  Priests  are  still 
liable  to  be  expelled  from  their  country  at  a  moment's  no- 
tice. Most  of  the  Religious  Orders  have  been  suppressed. 
The  few  remaining  are  oppressed."  * 

*  Quoted  from  "  Chair  of  Peter,"  p.  406.  - 


THE  DISTURBING  POLISH  QUESTION.  479 

In  September  of  the  same  year,  and  on  the  eve  of  the 
Parliamentary  elections,  the  Catholic  members,  led  by  Von 
Windthorst,  issued  an  address  to  the  electors,  in  which  they 
say  among  other  things :  "  The  so-called  Kulturkampf  is 
by  no  means  ended.  It  is  true  that  the  flood  has  somewhat 
subsided,  but  the  current  is  still  running  high.  Let  Catho- 
lics beware  when  these  waters  become  still  and  stagnant ; 
their  poisonous  exhalations  would  be  much  more  fatal  to 
the  national  life  than  when  the  furious  flood  was  at  its 
highest.  This  is  the  real  evil,  the  most  formidable  evil, 
from  which  Germany  suffers.  To  counteract  it,  to  extir- 
pate it,  is  our  chief  and  most  patriotic  task."  * 

One  great  disturbing  element  contributing  not  a  little  to 
prejudice  the  cause  of  the  German  Catholics,  to  nourish  the 
hostility  of  Prince  Bismarck  and  the  National  party,  and  to 
prevent  the  progress  of  negotiations  with  the  Holy  See,  was 
the  Polish  question.  The  Poles  were  Catholics,  and,  as 
such,  fell  under  the  same  prescriptive  legislation.  But  their 
unquenchable  yearning  for  a  restoration  of  their  own  na- 
tionality, the  calamitous  attempts  to  raise  aloft  the  standard 
of  their  lost  cause,  the  covert  or  open  agitation  which  ever- 
more stirred  the  populations  of  the  Polish  provinces  an- 
nexed to  the  kingdom  of  Prussia — all  these  sacred  feelings 
and  aspirations  of  a  dismembered  country  with  a  glorious 
past  constituted,  in  the  eyes  of  the  founders  of  the  German 
Empire  and  the  assertors  of  Teutonic  supremacy,  a  perma- 
nent danger  to  the  Fatherland  and  its  newly  established 
unity. 

The  one  unpardonable  sin  in  the  Catholic  Parliamentary 
party  in  Germany  was,  all  along,  their  sympathy  with  the 
suffering  Poles  ;  this  community  of  religion  threw  upon  all 
Prussian  Catholics  the  shadow  of  suspicion  that  they  were 
not  the  well-wishers  of  the  empire.  This  prejudice  met  the 
Pope  at  every  turn  in  his  unremitting  labors  for  the  reli- 
gious pacification  of  Prussia. 

Even  at  our  present  writing,  when  the  last  vestiges  of 

*  Ibidem. 


480  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIll. 

the  Kulturkampf  are  being  removed  one  after  the  other, 
like  a  terrific  thunder-storm  retiring  beyond  the  Vosgcs  and 
the  Alps  to  devastate  other  lands,  the  noble  band  of  men 
led  by  Von  Windthorst  are  to  the  Prussian  government  an 
object  of  fear  and  suspicion  because  they  will  not  give  up 
their  generous  sympathies  for  their  Polish  brethren. 

It  is  a  pity  that  Prince  Bismarck  cannot  learn  the  truth 
which  has  taken  possession  of  Gladstone's  great  mind  and 
greater  heart  in  his  latest  but  most  glorious  years,  and  see 
that  conciliation  is  more  powerful  to  bind  people  to  people 
and  race  to  race  than  coercion ;  and  that  the  Pole  can  be 
made  the  generous  friend  and  the  devoted  ally  of  the  Ger- 
man by  equal  and  just  laws,  by  a  large-minded  share 'of  reli- 
gious freedom,  by  that  practical  brotherly  love  and  equality 
which  Christianity  teaches.  Make  Prussian  Poland  the  hap- 
piest portion  of  the  German  Empire,  and  it  will  be  the  most 
faithful.  It  will  be  like  an  impassable  barrier  between  Ger- 
many and  Russian  aggression. 

If  you  would  make  the  Poles  forget  their  lost  nationali- 
ty, then  treat  them  as  a  privileged  and  favored  portion  of 
your  subjects,  so  as  to  convince  them  that  they  have  found 
in  your  government  something  better  than  they  could  hope 
for  under  a  separate  and  independent  nationality. 

At  any  rate,  we  do  not  believe,  after  the  long  and  sad 
experience  of  Ireland,  in  the  policy  of  expropriating,  direct- 
ly or  indirectly,  an  ancient  and  proud  race.  Their  native 
land  is  their  own.  God  has  given  them  a  right  to  it.  It 
would  be  wisdom  in  their  rulers  to  make  life  in  it  prosper- 
ous, contented,  happy  for  all  its  inhabitants.  Sow  their 
souls  with  justice  and  kindness,  and  you  will  reap  a  rich 
harvest  of  love,  of  gratitude,  of  eternal  fidelity. 

The  new  religious  law  in  Prussia,  virtually  cancelling  the 
existing  anti-Catholic  legislation,  was  finally  voted  by  the 
Prussian  Chamber  on  May  9,  1886,  and  sanctioned  by  the 
king  on  May  21. 

It  was  a  splendid  triumph  for  Leo  XIII. 


CHAPTER  XXX. 

LEO   XIII.   AND   HIGHER  STUDIES. 

VERY  one  who  had  known  the  extraordinary  zeal 
shown  by  Cardinal  Pecci,  as  Bishop  of  Perugia,  for 
the  advancement  of  education  and  the  promotion  of  the 
highest  Christian  philosophy  as  the  basis  of  all  true  learn- 
ing, was  prepared  to  see  him,  when  elevated  to  the  Pontifi- 
cal throne,  lend  his  supreme  authority  and  influence  to  the 
fostering  of  a  solid  and  complete  education  in  every  diocese 
within  the  Church.  We  have  already  seen  what  he  under- 
took and  accomplished  in  Rome,  from  the  very  beginning 
of  his  Pontificate,  for  the  benefit  of  the  laboring  classes. 
Not  one  portion  of  the  children  or  of  the  youth  of  Rome, 
not  even  apprentices  and  young  artisans  imperfectly  edu- 
cated, escaped  the  fatherly  solicitude  of  the  Pope.  Know- 
ing how  determined  the  governmental  and  municipal  autho- 
rities were  on  possessing  themselves  of  every  existing  school 
to  which  they  could  lay  claim  by  any  legal  artifice,  or  of 
which  they  could  obtain  the  direction  by  the  utmost  stretch 
of  power,  the  Pope  endeavored  to  be  beforehand  with  them 
in  establishing  day  and  night  schools  with  teachers  on  whose 
religious  principles  he  could  rely.  In  that  way  he  succeed- 
ed in  saving  thousands  of  Roman  children,  and  numbers  of 
boys  and  young  people  in  need  of  instruction  and  eager  to 
obtain  it,  from  being  swept  into  the  nets  of  the  anti-Catho- 
lic and  anti-Christian  proselytism  spread  in  every  street  of 
Rome. 

We  have  already  mentioned  the  admirable  letter  written 
to  Cardinal  Monaco  la  Valletta,  his  vicar-general  in  Rome, 
on  this  very  matter.  We  shall  presently  see  another  brief 
but  pregnant  and  no  less  admirable  letter  to  Cardinal  Pa- 
rocchi,  who  succeeded  Cardinal  La  Valletta  in  his  charge. 
The  letter  to  Cardinal  Parocchi,  however,  entirely  relates  to 
31  481 


482  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

the  higher  literary  studies  of  the  Roman  clergy.  And  this 
brings  us  to  see  what  Leo  XIII.  undertook  and  accom- 
plished in  the  matter  of  higher  studies. 

What  all  who  knew  Leo  XIII.  especially  expected  of 
him,  in  the  matter  of  higher  studies,  was  to  see  him  carry 
out  through  the  universal  Church  the  design  so  happily  con- 
ceived in  Perugia,  and  partially  executed  there,  of  restoring 
to  its  ancient  splendor  the  Christian  philosophy  which  had 
its  birth  in  the  very  first  age  of  the  Church,  receiving  its 
form  and  developments  from  the  early  Apologists  and 
Fathers,  and  attaining  under  St.  Thomas  Aquinas,  in  the 
thirteenth  century,  its  scientific  maturity. 

The  reader  who  in  the  preceding  chapters  has  followed 
with  any  attention  the  logical  sequence  of  Cardinal  Pecci's 
pastoral  letters  must  have  seen  that  he  traces  all  the  moral 
aberrations  and  political  disorders  of  our  age  and  of  modern 
times  to  the  introduction,  in  the  sixteenth  century  parti- 
cularly, of  a  false  and  anti-Christian  philosophy,  which 
ignores  any  authority  superior  to  individual  reason,  elimi- 
nates all  the  supernatural  order  from  the  domain  of  the 
intellect  and  of  private  and  social  life,  and  enthrones  natu- 
ralism, rationalism,  and  individualism  as  the  law-givers  in 
thought  and  action  of  human  society. 

While,  in  his  first  encyclicals,  he  clearly  warns  not  only 
his  brother-bishops,  but  governments,  the  entire  Catholic 
flock,  and  all  civilized  peoples  whom  his  voice  may  reach, 
of  the  necessity  of  returning,  if  society  would  be  saved 
from  imminent  ruin,  to  obedience  to  the  Church,  to  the  do- 
cile acceptance  of  the  teaching  of  the  one  divinely  appoint- 
ed authority  on  earth,  he  affirms  that  the  false  wisdom  or 
philosophy  which  the  last  three  centuries  have  followed 
must  be  set  aside  and  Christian  wisdom  and  philosophy 
made  the  light  of  all  education. 

A  false  and  fatal  education,  in  conformity  with  the  natu- 
ralism and  rationalism  above  mentioned,  has.  like  the  flick- 
ering of  a  "  will-o'-the-wisp  "  in  a  dark  night,  led  modern 
society  into  the  marshes  in  which  it  is  floundering.  Re- 
ligion, Christianity,  Catholicism  must  now  come  with  the 


LEO  XIII.  ON  TRUE  AND  FALSE  PHILOSOPHY.       483 

steady,  unfailing  lamp  of  her  divine  philosophy,  extricate 
social  order  from  its  mortal  peril,  and  lead  it  back  to  the 
old  paths. 

This  false  education,  this  anti-Christian  training  of  more 
than  three  hundred  years  has  misled  and  ruined  the  Chris- 
tendom reared  by  the  Church  ;  the  old  educational  meth- 
ods must  be  put  in  use  again. 

And  Thomas  Aquinas  must  once  more  be  enthroned  as 
"  the  Angel  of  the  Schools  "  ;  his  method  and  doctrine  must 
be  the  light  of  all  higher  teaching,  for  his  works  are  only 
revealed  truth  set  before  the  human  mind  in  its  most  sci- 
entific form. 

Let  there  be  no  misunderstanding  in  this  Leo  XIII. 's 
teaching.  He  is  not  for  setting  aside  as  pernicious,  or  use- 
less, or  hostile  to  revelation  what  Christian  theologians, 
philosophers,  and  scientists  acknowledge  and  accept  as  true 
science.  Writing  on  February  24,  1880,  to  the  Archbishop 
of  Cologne,  he  clearly  expresses  the  value  he  sets  on  such 
science,  while  affirming  the  necessity  of  the  counter-educa- 
tion we  are  here  describing: 

"  The  pest  of  Socialism,  .  .  .  which  so  deeply  perverts 
the  sense  of  our  populations,  derives  all  its  power  from  the 
darkness  it  causes  in  the  intellect  by  hiding  the  light  of  the 
eternal  truths,  and  from  its  corrupting  the  rule  of  life  laid 
down  by  Christian  morality  ;  it  can  never  be  extirpated  till 
the  minds  of  its  dupes  are  brought  back  to  a  clear  know- 
ledge of  the  supremely  true  and  supremely  good.  .  .  .  To 
bring  them  thus  back  ...  is  our  duty.  .  .  .  For,  albeit  in 
our  age  such  wonderful  and  incredible  progress — as  all  con- 
fess— has  been  made  in  the  arts  pertaining  to  the  comfort 
of  life  as  well  as  in  the  natural  sciences,  nevertheless  the 
corruption  of  public  manners  goes  on  daily  increasing. 
And  as  the  history  of  past  times  has  taught  us  that  what 
brings  erring  nations  back  from  the  wrong  path  and  pre- 
serves them  from  ruin  is  not  progress  in  the  arts  or  natural 
sciences,  but  their  fervor  in  learning  and  fulfilling  the  law 
of  Christ,  we  therefore  ardently  desire  that  the  Church 
should  everywhere  be  in  the  full  enjoyment  of  her  liberty, 


484  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIIL 

that  she  may  bestow  on  the  nations  the  benefits  of  this  sav- 
ing doctrine."  * 

There  is  in  the  Pontiff's  mind  and  purpose  no  antagon- 
ism to  true  progress  and  the  legitimate  developments  of  all 
the  arts  and  sciences  ;  for  these  follow  naturally,  inevitably 
on  the  increase  in  Christian  knowledge  and  Christian  mo- 
rality in  all  communities.  But  what  he  aims  at  is  to  make 
the  fulness  of  truth,  natural  and  supernatural,  the  very  life 
of  the  mind  by  setting  both  the  one  and  the  other  before  it 
stripped  of  all  doubt  and  error,  like  the  pure  light  present- 
ed to  the  sound  bodily  eye,  entering  it  of  its  own  accord 
and  giving  that  organ  its  life  by  placing  it  in  the  full  enjoy- 
ment of  its  proper  object.  And  not  that  only,  but  the 
Pontiff  aims  at  giving  to  the  will,  in  this  perfect  light  of 
the  natural  and  supernatural  world  made  known  to  it, 
the  moral  law  of  Christ,  embracing  not  only  what  God  has 
written  on  our  hearts  in  the  law  of  nature,  but  the  super- 
natural law  of  love  and  divine  self-sacrifice  which  the 
Father  has  written  for  us  in  luminous  letters  in  the  words 
and  actions  of  Christ,  His  Incarnate  Son. 

The  philosophy  of  St.  Thomas,  the  philosophy  of 
Christianity,  does  but  place  every  follower  of  Christ  in  the 
heart  of  these  concentric  worlds,  the  natural  and  the  super- 
natural orders,  and  enlighten  him  perfectly  on  his  relations 
and  his  duties  to  both. 

Leo  XIIL  entertained  the  most  firm  conviction  that  all 
education  should  be  reformed  on  Christian  principles ;  that 
all  the  appliances  of  modern  progress  should  be  used  to 
make  Christian  truth  and  Christian  morality  lovely  to  the 
young;  that  the  Christian  home  should  be  like  that  of 
Nazareth  in  which  Christ  was  brought  up,  parents  there 
considering  themselves  bound  in  conscience  to  regard  and 
to  rear  each  child  of  theirs  as  "  a  child  of  God,"  whose  life 
was  to  be  modelled  on  that  of  the  Incarnate  Son.  What 
his  ideas  about  instruction  and  education  in  elementary 
and  intermediary  schools  are  we  know  already.  What  they 

*  "  Acta,"  ii.  43-46. 


AN  ENCYCLICAL  ON  CHRISTIAN  PHILOSOPHY.      485 

should  be  in  the  university  or  professional  stage  he  informs 
us  in  his  encyclicals  on  St.  Thomas  Aquinas  and  the  nu- 
merous letters  written  to  men  of  every  nation  to  encourage 
and  stimulate  them  in  their  efforts  to  restore  Christian  phi- 
losophy by  making  the  great  works  of  St.  Thomas  the  basis 
of  their  studies  and  teaching. 

Not  before  the  4th  of  August,  1879,  could  Leo  XIII. 
find  time  to  complete  and  publish  the  wonderful  document 
by  which  he  authoritatively  declared  that  the  Thomistic 
philosophy  should  in  all  Catholic  schools  be  the  source 
from  which  the  professors  should  borrow  their  doctrine  and 
their  method.  To  the  non-Catholic  world  this  encyclical 
was  represented  as  an  attempt  to  make  the  modern  intel- 
lectual world  retrograde  to  the  scholasticism  of  the  middle 
ages,  and  to  put  on  the  mind  all  the  fetters  of  the  old  un- 
progressiveness.  This  could  only  be  said  by  the  thoroughly 
ignorant  or  the  deeply  prejudiced.  Theodore  Beza  and 
Bucer  were  wont  to  say  that  if  the  works  and  method  of 
Thomas  Aquinas  were  taken  from  the  defenders  of  Catho- 
licism, its  doctors  would  soon  be  driven  from  the  field  of 
controversy  and  their  Church  itself  overturned. 

But  Leo  XIII.'s  purpose  was  not  to  arm  the  controver- 
sialists of  the  Church  of  Rome  with  victorious  weapons 
against  Protestantism ;  the  needs  of  the  age  go  far  beyond 
that.  In  our  day  it  is  the  whole  structure  of  revealed  truth, 
the  whole  body  of  religious  truth  as  such,  and  as  distin- 
guished from  a  godless,  spiritless  materialism,  that  the 
teachers  and  preachers  of  Catholic  doctrine  have  to  defend 
and  to  hold  up  to  the  admiration  of  the  educated  intelli- 
gence of  the  age. 

"  The  Eternal  Father's  only-begotten  Son,  who  appeared 
upon  earth  to  bring  down  among  men  salvation  with  the 
light  of  divine  wisdom,  conferred  upon  the  world  a  truly 
great  and  admirable  benefit  when,  about  to  reascend  to 
heaven,  He  bade  His  apostles  '  to  go  forth  and  teach  all 
nations,'  *  and  thus  left  the  Church  which  He  had  founded 

*St    Matthew  xxviii.  19. 


486  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

to  be  the  common  and  supreme  teacher  of  all  peoples. 
Mankind,  freed  by  truth,  must  be  preserved  by  truth ;  the 
fruits  of  heavenly  teaching  in  which  man  found  his  salva- 
tion should  have  been  but  short-lived  unless  Christ,  our 
Lord,  had  instituted  an  everlasting  teaching  authority  to 
convey  faith  to  all  minds.  The  Church,  therefore,  thus 
strengthened  by  the  promises  of  her  Divine  Founder  and 
imitating  His  charity,  so  fulfilled  His  commands  that  she 
always  had  for  sole  purpose  and  chiefly  sought  this  one 
thing,  to  have  His  religion  observed  and  to  make  a  per- 
petual war  on  error.  Toward  accomplishing  this  purpose 
bishops  bestow  their  vigilance  and  their  labors ;  toward  this 
councils  make  laws  and  decrees ;  and  this  is  the  subject  of 
the  daily  care  of  the  Roman  Pontiffs,  to  whom,  as  to  Peter's, 
the  Prince  of  the  Apostles,  successors  in  the  primacy,  be- 
longs the  office  of  teaching  and  confirming  in  the  faith 
their  brothers." 

Such  is  the  beginning  of  this  encyclical,  the  appear- 
ance of  which  marks  what  may  be  called  a  new  era  in 
intellectual  philosophy,  at  least  in  so  far  as  the  Catholic 
Church  is  concerned.  The  Pope,  after  demonstrating 
the  utility  of  philosophy,  "  on  which  all  the  other  sciences 
depend  in  a  great  measure  for  their  own  right  consti- 
tution," insists  on  the  circumstances  of  the  present  age, 
which  requires  "a  philosophical  doctrine  that  has  an 
equal  regard  for  the  rules  of  faith  and  the  dignity  of 
all  human  science."  "If  the  intellect  is  sound  and 
firmly  based  on  solid  and  true  principles,  its  light  will 
become  the  source  of  manifold  benefits  both  to  the  indi- 
vidual and  to  the  community.  ...  It  is  quite  in  con- 
formity with  the  order  of  Providence  to  ask  human  sci- 
ence to  lend  its  aid  in  bringing  the  nations  back  to  faith 
and  health.  This  was  the  wise  and  clever  method  of  which 
the  most  illustrious  Fathers  of  the  Church  frequently  made 
use,  as  antiquity  attests.  These  same  Fathers  considered 
that  reason  played  a  manifold  and  an  important  part,  which 
the  great  St.  Augustine  defined  in  these  pregnant  terms : 
attributing  to  this  [philosophic]  science  .  .  .  the  reason  why 


PHILOSOPHY  PREPARES  THE   WAY  FOR  FAITH.     487 

salutary  faith  .  .  .  is  begotten,  is  fostered,  is  protected,  is 
strengthened* 

The  encyclical  goes  on  to  show  how  philosophy  (that  is, 
a  right  and  scientific  use  of  reason)  prepares  the  way  for 
faith,  demonstrates  by  her  own  native  power  many  funda- 
mental truths  of  religion — such  as  the  existence  of  God,  His 
creation  and  government  of  the  world,  etc. — the  nature  and 
attributes  of  the  Deity,  and  others  which  "are  proposed  for 
our  belief  by  revelation,  or  which  are  closely  connected 
with  the  supernatural  order."  The  early  Fathers  made  use 
of  this  method  to  show  the  reasonableness  of  Christianity. 

This  scientific  use  of  reason,  or  of  the  pagan  philosophy 
in  so  far  as  it  was  based  on  true  principles,  so  common  among 
the  early  Christian  apologists,  is  compared  by  the  Pope 
"  to  the  gold  and  silver  vessels  and  rich  vestments  borrowed 
by  the  Hebrews  from  their  Egyptian  masters.  .  .  .  These 
spoils,  which  till  then  had  been  used  in  shameful  rites  and 
vain  superstitions,  were  devoted  to  the  service  of  the  true 
God."  So  did  Gregory  of  Neo-Caesarea  praise  Origen  for 
employing  the  intellectual  armor  of  the  heathen  in  combat- 
ing their  errors.  So  did  a  host  of  others  among  the  early 
Christian  writers. 

"If  natural  reason  could  produce  so  plentiful  a  crop  of 
good  fruit  before  Christ  came  to  bestow  on  it  fecundity, 
how  much  richer  will  the  harvest  be  when  His  saving  grace 
restores  and  increases  the  native  powers  of  the  human  mind  ! 

"  Is  it  not,  then,  evident  that  this  manner  of  philosophiz- 
ing opens  up  a  level  and  easy  road  to  faith  ?  " 

Continuing  this  line  of  argument,  the  encyclical  goes  on 
to  show  what  truths  of  the  religious  order  natural  reason  is 
capable  of  attaining  to  and  proving — the  existence  of  God, 
His  perfections  and  attributes ;  the  miraculous  and  super- 
natural origin  and  character  of  the  Gospel  doctrine ;  the 
foundation  of  the  Church  by  Christ,  "  because  (as  the  Vati- 
can Council  has  decreed)  of  its  eminent  propagation,  its 
surpassing  holiness,  and  its  exhaustless  fecundity  in  all 

*  St.  Augustine,  De  Trimt.,l\b.  xiv.  i:  huic  scientiee  tribuens  .  .  .  illud 
quo  fides  saluberrima  .  ,  .  gignitur,  nutritur,  defenditur,  roboratur. 


4SS  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

places;  because  of  its  Catholic  unity,  its  unshaken  stability, 
it  produces  a  great  and  perpetual  motive  of  credibility,  and 
an  irrefragable  testimony  to  its  own  divine  mission. 

"  Based  on  these  firm  foundations,  philosophy  is  called 
into  frequent  and  perpetual  use,  in  order  to  impart  to  theo- 
logy the  nature,  the  condition,  and  the  character  of  a  true 
M-icnce.  The  whole  body  of  revealed  doctrines  must  be 
bound  together  in  its  various  parts,  each  fitting  in  its  own 
place  and  deriving  from  its  proper  principles,  so  that  their 
coherence  and  connection  may  be  evident ;  and,  finally,  all 
and  each  must  be  supported  by  respectively  proper  and  irre- 
futable arguments." 

This — passing  over  the  history  of  Christian  philosophy 
—brings  us  to  the  last  complete  and  perfectly  scientific  form 
which  Thomas  Aquinas  gave  to  it  in  his  two  great  works, 
the  "Summa  Theologiae "  and  the  "  Summa  contra  Gen- 
tiles," which  are  the  most  wonderful  treatises  of  natural 
theology  in  existence.  In  the  first  chapters  relating  to  Joa- 
chim Pecci's  labors  in  Perugia  we  described  the  peculiar 
method  of  St.  Thomas.  Here  we  merely  add  what  Leo 
XIII.  says  of  his  eminence  as  a  scholar  and  teacher: 

"Among  the  doctors  of  the  [mediaeval]  schools  St. 
Thomas  stands  forth  by  far  the  first  and  the  master  of 
all.  As  Cajetan  has  remarked,  because  he  had  a  sovereign 
veneration  for  all  the  ancient  doctors,  he  seems  to  have  united 
in  himself  the  intellectual  powers  of  them  all. 

"Their  teachings,  which  were  like  the  scattered  mem- 
bers of  the  same  body,  he  put  together  and  completed,  ar- 
ranging them  in  a  marvellous  order,  and  giving  them  such 
wonderful  increase  that  he  is  justly  held  to  be  the  great  de- 
fender and  glory  of  the  Catholic  Church. 

"A  man  by  nature  fond  of  learning  and  quick-witted, 
with  a  ready  and  retentive  memory,  of  irreproachable  vir- 
tue, a  devoted  lover  of  truth,  with  a  mind  enriched  with  all 
human  and  divine  knowledge,  as  the  sun  he  warmed  the 
earth  with  the  vital  power  of  his  sanctity  and  filled  it  with 
the  light  of  his  doctrine.  He  wrote  on  every  part  of  phi- 
losophy with  equal  penetration  and  solidity.  His  disputa- 


489 


490 


LIFE  OF  LEO  Xlll. 


tions  embrace  the  laws  of  reasoning,  God  and  incorporeal 
substances,  man  and  all  things  accessible  to  our  senses,  hu- 
man acts  and  their  principles.  And  in  all  these  you  have 
never  to  regret  the  absence  of  abundance  in  the  rich  accu- 
mulation of  subject-matters,  or  of  a  fit  arrangement  of  parts, 
or  excellence  in  the  method  of  proceeding,  or  solidity  of 
principles,  or  cogency  in  the  arguments,  or  clearness  and 
propriety  in  the  diction,  or  facility  in  explaining  what  is 
most  difficult. 

"  To  this  we  must  add  that  the  Angelic  Doctor  extended 
the  sphere  of  his  philosophical  conclusions  and  speculations 
to  the  very  reasons  and  principles  of  things,  opening  out 
the  widest  field  for  study,  and  containing  within  themselves 
the  germs  of  an  infinity  of  truths,  an  exhaustless  mine  for 
future  teachers  to  draw  from  at  the  proper  time  and  with 
rich  results.  As  he  used  the  same  intellectual  process  in  re- 
futing error,  he  succeeded  in  combating  single-handed  all 
the  erroneous  systems  of  past  ages,  and  supplied  victorious 
weapons  to  the  champions  of  truth  against  the  errors  which 
are  to  crop  up  in  succession  to  the  end  of  time. 

"  Besides  this,  while  very  properly  distinguishing  reason 
from  faith,  he  binds  them  both  together  in  friendly  accord 
without  violating  the  rights  of  either  or  forgetting  what  is 
due  to  their  respective  dignity.  In  this  way  reason,  in  St. 
Thomas,  rises  to  such  sublime  heights  that  human  nature 
can  fly  no  higher,  nor  can  faith  hope  from  reason  greater 
or  more  powerful  aid  than  she  receives  in  the  pages  of  St. 
Thomas. 

"  This  it  was  which,  in  past  ages  especially,  impelled  men 
most  eminent  as  theologians  and  philosophers  to  collect  to- 
gether the  immortal  writings  of  St.  Thomas,  and  to  devote 
themselves  not  merely  to  study  his  angelic  wisdom  but  to 
feed  their  souls  upon  it." 

The  supreme  honor  paid  to  this  great  man's  incompar- 
able merit  was  the  homage  paid  to  his  works  and  authority 
by  the  oecumenical  councils  held  since  the  thirteenth  cen- 
tury, from  that  of  Lyons  to  that  of  the  Vatican.  In  the 
Council  of  Trent  the  "  Summa  "  of  St.  Thomas  was  placed 


THE  ACADEMY  OF  ST.   THOMAS  AQUINAS.  491 

on  the  altar  by  the  side  of  the  Gospels,  as  being  the  most 
perfect  and  scientific  exposition  of  revealed  truth. 

This  encyclical  created  great  enthusiasm  among  Catholic 
scholars  in  every  land.  The  intellectual  activity  which  it 
called  forth  and  promoted  in  all  Catholic  schools  of  philo- 
sophy and  theology  was  accompanied  by  increased  efforts 
to  make  the  accord  between  reason  and  faith,  so  beauti- 
fully praised  by  the  Pontiff,  still  more  effective  in  modern 
Catholic  universities,  where  Science,  in  the  fullest  accepta- 
tion of  the  term,  should  be  shown  to  be  the  able  and  will- 
ing auxiliary  of  revelation. 

The  Holy  Father  hastened  to  establish  in  Rome  an 
Academy  of  St.  Thomas  Aquinas,  in  which  the  very  best 
scholars  the  Church  can  boast  of  and  her  foremost  scien- 
tists should  labor  side  by  side  to  build  up  the  magnificent 
edifice  of  philosophical  science  as  Thomas  Aquinas  con- 
ceived it  and  as  modern  times  require  it.  The  Sovereign 
Pontiff  commissioned  some  select  scholars  to  prepare  a  per- 
fect edition  of  the  works  of  the  saint. 

t  Meanwhile,  by  the  orders  of  His  Holiness,  the  high 
schools  of  philosophy  and  theology  in  Rome  were  so  en- 
larged as  to  accommodate  select  youths  from  the  dioceses 
of  Italy,  who  would  receive  in  Rome  the  very  best  culture 
the  capital  of  the  Christian  world  could  afford,  and  would 
return  to  their  own  dioceses  to  elevate  the  intellectual  stan- 
dard there,  and  to  form  in  their  turn  superior  men,  tho- 
roughly grounded  in  true  philosophy,  and  thereby  enabled 
to  rise  themselves  and  to  lift  up  others  with  them  to  the 
highest  sacred  science. 

But  the  Holy  Father's  chief  zeal  was  bestowed  on  the 
clergy  of  his  own  diocese  of  Rome.  Just  as  he  was  labor- 
ing to  make  the  students  belonging  to  the  nationalities  of 
the  Greek  rite  accomplished  Greek  scholars,  writers,  and 
orators,  in  order  to  insure  greater  success  to  their  aposto- 
late  among  their  countrymen,  so  would  he  have  the  Roman 
secular  clergy  accomplished  men  of  letters,  wielding  with 
the  most  perfect  skill  their  own  native  Italian  and  the 
purest  Latin  diction  of  the  ancient  Romans,  as  well  as 


492 


LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 


that  exquisite  Greek  idiom  which  Demosthenes,  Sopho- 
cles, and  Plato  made  the  most  perfect  vehicle  of  noble 
thought  ever  used  by  man. 

He  therefore  founded  for  his  seminarians  a  course  of 
higher  literary  studies  in  Italian,  Latin,  and  Greek,  to  which 
the  most  distinguished  for  talent  should  be  admitted  at  the 
end  of  the  ordinary  college  curriculum.  They  were  to  be 
provided  with  the  very  best  professors  to  be  found,  the 
execution  of  the  whole  project  being  entrusted  to  that  ex- 
cellent scholar,  writer,  and  orator,  as  well  as  model  priest 
and  bishop,  Cardinal  Parocchi,  the  Pope's  vicar. 

The  letter  in  which  Leo.  XIII.'s  will  in  this  regard  is 
made  known  is  dated  May  20,  1885  : 

"  You  understand  perfectly,"  the  letter  says,  "  what  we 
have  often  said,  and  not  without  good  reason,  that  serious 
and  continual  efforts  should  be  made  to  have  the  clergy 
distinguish  themselves  in  all  branches  of  knowledge.  The 
needs  of  the  present  age  imperatively  require  it.  Intellec- 
tual culture  advances  so  rapidly,  and  the  appetite  for  learn- 
ing is  so  insatiable,  that  the  clergy  would  find  themselves  at 
a  disadvantage  for  the  proper  and  fruitful  discharge  of  their 
duties  if  they  did  not  merit  for  their  order  the  same  reputa- 
tion for  intellectual  culture  of  which  other  professions  are 
so  ambitious. 

"  This  is  why  we  have  bestowed  so  much  care  and 
thought  on  the  best  methods  of  culture  for  our  young  semi- 
narians. Beginning  by  the  most  serious  matters  of  study, 
we  have  endeavored  to  revive  the  doctrine  and  method  of 
St.  Thomas  Aquinas  in  philosophy  and  theology. 

"  But  since  literature  occupies  so  large  a  space  in  college 
studies,  and  contributes  such  large  stores  to  our  knowledge 
for  all  the  purposes  of  social  life  and  all  its  humanities  and 
graces,  we  have  resolved  to  lay  down  certain  lines  on  which 
letters  have  to  be  cultivated." 

After  showing  at  length  the  advantages  to  be  obtained 
from  high  literary  culture,  Leo  XIII.  continues:  "  It  is  on 
account  of  these  practical  advantages  that  the  Catholic 
Church,  which  truly  values  all  that  is  honorable,  all  that  is 


LETTER  TO  CARDINAL  PAROCCHI. 


493 


beautiful,  all  that  is  praiseworthy,  has  always  attached  to 
the  culture  of  letters  a  due  importance  and  has  encouraged 
it  in  every  way.  We  see  that  the  Fathers  of  the  Church 
were  adorned  with  all  the  graces  of  the  literary  culture  of 
their  respective  times.  And  there  are  some  of  them  whose 
native  genius  and  acquired  literary  art  place  them  almost 
on  a  level  with  the  most  classic  Greeks  and  Romans. 

"  Let  us  also  say  that  the  Church  can  claim  the  enviable 
merit  of  having  saved  from  destruction  the  greatest  part  of 
the  masterpieces  of  the  ancient  Greek  and  Latin  poets,  ora- 
tors, and  historians.  Besides — a  thing  which  every  one 
knows — in  the  ages  when  the  culture  of  letters  was  neg- 
lected or  impossible,  when  literary  fame  was  drowned  amid 
the  clash  and  tumult  of  arms  all  over  Europe,  letters  found 
a  refuge  in  the  community-homes  of  the  monks  or  the 
secular  priesthood. 

"  Nor  should  we  forget  that  among  the  Popes  who  have 
gone  before  us  there  are  many  who  acquired  distinguished 
fame  in  letters."  * 

Leo  XIII.  mentions  last  among  these  cultured  Popes 
Leo  X.,  who  was  rather  a  patron  of  learning  and  literary 
men  than  a  man  of  letters  himself.  He  omits  all  mention 
of  the  glorious  names  of  cultured  Pontiffs  who  came  after 
Leo — men,  in  our  judgment,  far  more  accomplished  than 
even  their  own  great  predecessors  before  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury. 

Cardinal  Parocchi  was  in  his  element  when  occupied  in 
promoting  advancement  and  excellence  among  the  youth 
entrusted  to  him. 

The  Seminario  Romano,  the  great  school  for  the  diocesan 
clergy,  is  organized  on  the  highest  level  of  culture.  There 
is  a  department  or  college  for  Oriental  philology,  with  a 
faculty  of  rare  excellence.  The  dean  is  the  illustrious  Mon- 
signor  Ciasco,  the  light  of  the  Augustinian  Order,  who  is 
professor  of  Hebrew.  The  chairs  of  Greek,  Arabic,  Arme- 
nian, Syriac,  and  Copt  are  filled  by  men  of  the  highest 
fame. 

*  "  Acta,"  v.  61-65. 


494  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIIL 

But  the  "  Pontifical  Institute  of  High  Literature,"  which 
the  Pope  officially  founded  by  the  letter  just  mentioned,  is 
already  in  full  operation.  The  students  have  given  to  the 
public  specimens  of  their  ability  and  progress. 

The  fact  is  that  the  very  name  of  Leo  XIIL  is  an  incen- 
tive to  the  acquisition  of  literary  excellence.  His  example, 
his  unceasing  labors  and  generous  patronage,  have  diffused 
throughout  the  entire  body  of  the  clergy  a  noble  spirit  of 
emulation  and  industry. 


CHAPTER   XXXI. 

LEO   XIII.   AND   FRANCE. 
[1878-1886.] 

*T"^V  O  people,  among  all  those  who  were  the  more  special 
«J— £  object  of  Leo  XIII. 's  pastoral  solicitude  during 
the  first  eight  years  of  his  Pontificate,  occupied  a  greater 
place  in  his  mind  and  his  heart  than  the  French  Catholics — 
no,  not  even  the  populations  of  Italy,  his  own  flesh  and 
blood,  and  so  closely  connected  with  the  name,  the  glories, 
and  the  very  existence  of  Catholicity. 

France,  in  spite  of  the  tremendous  changes  effected  by 
the  Revolution  of  1789-93  in  the  whole  framework  of 
French  society,  and  in  the  very  habits  of  thought,  the  very 
language,  feelings,  and  conduct  of  the  people ;  in  spite  even 
of  the  confiscation  by  Napoleon  of  the  States  of  the  Church 
and  the  imprisonment  and  exile  of  Pope  and  cardinals,  was 
still,  in  the  eyes  of  the  whole  civilized  world,  the  foremost 
Catholic  nation,  as  she  continued  to  be,  down  to  1870-71, 
the  leading  nation  in  the  political  world. 

But  the  change  in  the  brilliant  capital  of  France  from 
what  it  was  during  the  Universal  Exposition  of  1868-69  to 
what  the  government  troops  found  it  on  wresting  it  from 
the  Commune  in  1872  was  not  more  appalling  than  the 
change  effected  throughout  the  length  and  breadth  of  the 
country  from  1878  to  1886.  In  the  capital  of  the  empire 
and  in  the  empire  itself,  its  institutions  and  government, 
the  woful  transformation  was  not  effected  by  the  terrible 
war  through  which  the  country  had  passed,  nor  by  any  for- 
eign might  upsetting,  destroying,  and  then  rebuilding  after 
its  own  caprice ;  the  forces  which  had  been  at  work  destroy- 
ing and  removing  what  the  first  Revolution  had  spared  of 
the  fair  and  glorious  edifice  reared  by  twelve  centuries  of 

495 


49° 


LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 


Christian  civilization  were  forces  from  within,  not  from 
without — they  were  the  fanatical  anti-Christian,  anti-social 
passions  of  Frenchmen  themselves. 

Why  do  we  solicit  the  reader's  attention  to  this  unique 
spectacle  in  all  history  of  the  foremost  of  Christian  nations 
laying  violent  hands  on  herself  and  extinguishing  the  very 
sources  of  her  own  life  ? 

Simply  to  make  American  and  English  readers  under- 
stand what  a  task  Leo  XIII.,  on  ascending  the  papal  throne 
on  February  20,  1878,  had  to  undertake  in  his  endeavor  to 
save  religion  in  republican  France. 

From  the  days  of  Pope  Stephen  III.  (752-757),  who  first 
called  in  the  Franks  under  Charles  Martel  to  save  Rome 
and  the  independence  of  the  Pontifical  office  from  the  ty- 
ranny of  the  Lombards,  down  to  the  last  years  of  Pius  IX., 
the  devotion  of  Catholic  France  to  the  Papacy  was  a  tradi- 
tional virtue.  For  one  among  her  rulers  who  was  harsh  or 
tyrannical  in  his  dealings  with  a  Pope,  there  were  ten  at 
least  who  deemed  it  their  duty  and  their  glory  to  protect 
against  all  external  violence  the  sacred  principality  which 
the  sword  of  the  great  Charles  Martel  and  that  of  his 
greater  son,  Charlemagne,  had  won  for  the  Roman  Church, 
and  which  their  solemnly  recorded  acts  and  the  jurispru- 
dence of  all  Christendom  guaranteed  to  the  Holy  See  as 
the  bulwark  of  its  independence. 

Leo  XIII.  knew  that  if  the  wine  of  Jacobinism,  with 
which  the  French  Revolutionary  armies  were  drunk  in 
1798-99,  made  them  and  their  leaders  commit  such  im- 
pious excesses,  that  they  did  not  represent  Catholic  France. 
There  was  a  Catholic  France,  oppressed  by  the  Revolution, 
which  survived,  and  its  love  afterward  overflowed  and  flood- 
ed Rome,  and  that  missionary  world  so  dear  to  Rome,  with 
its  benefactions  and  heroic  devotedness. 

But  Leo  XIII.  on  his  accession  found  France  in  a  worse 
and  more  hopeless  plight  than  the  seventh  Pius  found  on 
his  election  in  1800.  That  gentle  and  saintly  Pontiff's  con- 
ciliatory spirit  was  able  to  prevail  on  Napoleon  Bonaparte 
to  set  up  anew  the  altars  torn  down  by  the  Revolution. 


WtiA  TjOA  CHI  At  PECCI  BEHELD  IN  FRAXCE  IN  1846.    49  7 

But  could  Leo  XIII.  prevent  that  same  Revolution  which 
was  in  1878  a  living,  mighty,  overmastering  spirit  in  France, 
from  tearing  down  these  altars  anew,  and  making  of  the 
work  of  destruction  this  time  a  work  as  thorough  as  ungod- 
liness armed  with  political  omnipotence  could  effect? 

All  intelligent  readers  know  that  I  am  stating  in  its 
simplest  terms  the  Problem — one  which  is  still  unsolved, 
while  all  Europe  and  all  civilized  peoples  are  anxiously 
watching  if  even  Leo  XIII. 's  prudence,  skill,  and  eloquence 
will  be  able  to  solve  it  in  favor  of  religion. 

And  now  will  the  reader  be  patient  with  us  while  we 
give  a  brief  retrospect  of  that  Catholic  France,  and  en- 
deavor to  account  for  the  existence  of  that  mighty  prob- 
lem which  at  this  moment  religion  and  irreligion  are  both 
trying  to  solve,  each  in  its  own  favor  ? 

No  Pope  had  ever  to  face  such  a  difficulty  as  this  French 
one,  whose  phases  are  still  succeeding  each  other  like  the 
terrible  scenes  in  Wagner's  epic  dramas,  where  all  ends  in 
the  setting  for  ever  of  the  sun  of  the  old-time  religion. 

We  Americans  preserve  glorious  recollections  of  French 
missionary  zeal  on  our  continent.  The  French  heralds  of 
the  Gospel  had  been  at  work  among  the  native  tribes  in 
our  forests  before  the  Mayflower  had  touched  the  shores 
of  New  England.  Our  own  Protestant  historians  have  told 
the  story  of  their  sufferings  and  labors  and  have  glorified 
the  laborers. 

How  account  for  this  twofold  life,  so  contradictory  in 
its  principles,  its  aims,  its  deeds  ?  We  must,  however,  ac- 
count for  it  if  we  would  understand  what  is  now  passing 
before  our  eyes,  what  perplexes  the  ordinary  superficial  ob- 
server, what  is  the  most  wonderful,  if  not  the  saddest,  spec- 
tacle in  the  history  of  nations,  and  what  is  the  heaviest 
cross  which  Leo  XIII.  has  to  bear. 

When  in  1846  Joachim  Pecci,  on  his  way  from  London 
to  Rome,  paused  awhile  in  the  French  capital,  he  was 
much  struck  by  the  amazing  progress  religion  seemed  to 
be  making  in  the  kingdom  in  spite  of  the  strong  Voltairean 
scepticism  which  survived  the  first  Revolution,  the  First 


498  LIFE  OF  LEO  AY/7. 

Empire,  and  the  Bourbon  Restoration,  and  had  gained  in 
intellectual  predominance  and  social  influence  what  it  had 
lost  in  its  early  fanaticism  and  violence. 

It  is  a  lesson  to  be  learned  by  all  Christian  peoples,  the 
working  of  these  two  adverse  principles,  whose  final  strug- 
gle now  claims  all  the  pastoral  care,  all  the  preternatural 
wisdom  and  patience,  that  Leo  XIII.  can  bestow  upon  it. 

Whatever  mistakes  Louis  Philippe's  government  com- 
mitted in  its  relations  toward  the  Church  from  1830  to 
1848,  it  is  certain  that,  both  at  home  and  abroad,  the  deep 
religious  spirit  of  French  Catholics  displayed  extraordinary 
zeal  in  creating  institutions  of  every  kind  for  education, 
charity,  and  beneficence.  The  religious  revival  which  had 
begun  under  the  first  Napoleonic  Empire  and  had  contin- 
ued under  the  restored  Bourbons  produced  marvellous  re- 
sults under  the  Orleanist  monarchy.  It  was  like  an  arctic 
springtide,  the  whole  land  bursting  forth  into  a  miraculous 
bloom  of  apostolic  fecundity.  Religious  orders  of  men  and 
women  sprang  up  everywhere,  and  the  old  missionary  spi- 
rit of  the  French — one  of  the  mightiest  forces  at  the  com- 
mand of  the  Church  to  spread  the  Christian  name — covered 
Asia  and  America  with  bands  of  heroic  men  and  women 
solely  devoted  to  the  propagation  of  the  faith  among  the 
heathen  or  its  extension  on  the  unoccupied  territories  of 
the  New  World. 

This  admirable  missionary  spirit  was  only  a  new  form 
of  the  living  faith  which  sent  Godfrey  de  Bouillon  to  Pales- 
tine, St.  Louis  to  the  plague-stricken  Delta  of  the  Nile,  and 
again  to  his  death  among  the  Saracens.  It  filled  all  classes 
in  France  during  the  crusading  ages,  from  the  royal  family 
and  the  highest  nobility  down  to  the  peasant  and  the  arti- 
san. All  were  the  soldiers  of  Christ.  And  this  glorious 
spirit  was  not  confined  to  one  sex :  Frenchwomen  had 
caught  the  sacred  flame  as  well  as  the  men.  St.  Louis  had 
his  young  queen  by  his  side  all  through  that  first  African 
campaign  when  pestilence  annihilated  his  army  and  left 
the  feeble  and  sickly  remnants  with  their  sovereigns  in  the 
hands  of  the  Moslem.  The  spirit  of  French  womanhood 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  FRENCH  CA  THOL1CISM.  499 

in  the  following  centuries  found  no  unworthy  representa- 
tive in  the  heroic  and  saintly  Joan  of  Arc,  to  whose  virtues 
and  true  character  even  English  scholars  are  now  beginning 
to  do  full  justice. 

The  early  colonial  history  of  our  own  North  America  is 
the  history,  principally,  of  the  heroic  missionaries  of  France. 
Robertson,  Bancroft,  Parkman,  Kipp  have  vied  with  each 
other  in  describing  the  expeditions,  the  sufferings,  the  suc- 
cesses, the  heroic  lives  crowned  by  a  still  more  heroic  death, 
of  Jesuits,  Franciscans,  Dominicans,  of  the  Sulpicians  of 
Montreal  and  of  the  priests  of  the  Seminary  of  Quebec, 
the  advance  guards  of  Christ  and  civilization  on  all  the 
mighty  continent  between  the  Gulf  of  St.  Lawrence  and 
the  long  line  of  the  Pacific  coast.  And  if  the  Christian 
manhood  of  France  was  worthily  represented  in  these  far- 
off  times  by  Jogues  and  Goupil,  by  Lallemand,  Brebeuf, 
and  Rasles,  by  Champlain  and  La  Salle  and  Marquette, 
French  womanhood  blossomed  forth  in  such  glorious 
names  as  Marie  de  1'Incarnation,  the  foundress  of  the 
Quebec  Ursulines,  and  Marguerite  Bourgeoys,  the  foun- 
dress of  the  Sisters  of  Notre  Dame  of  Montreal.* 

There  was  no  intermission  in  that  wonderful  apostolic 
fervor  which  glowed  in  French  bosoms  down  to  the  dread- 
ful days  of  the  Reign  of  Terror.  What  sublime  heights  of 
heroism  the  Christian  men  and  women  of  France  displayed 
all  through  that  period  of  massacres  and  persecutions 
every  school-boy  and  school  girl  knows  at  present.  Their 
supernatural  virtue  shone  at  home  in  France  while  the 
guillotine  was  en  permanence  and  mowed  down  its  harvests 
night  and  day,  and  when  the  prisons  were  full  of  the 
noblest,  the  purest,  the  best — the  hecatombs  whose  blood 
washed  away  the  sins  of  the  three  preceding  generations. 
And  abroad  the  exiles  who  found  their  way  to  the  shores 
of  Great  Britain  and  of  America,  were  not  their  very  lives 
the  Gospel  law  in  practice?  All  along  our  Atlantic  sea- 
board and  in  the  interior,  all  through  the  vast  regions 

*  See  "  Heroic  Women  of  the  Bible  and  the  Church."  last  chapter 


5OO  LIFE  OF  LEO  XI1L 

drained  by  the  Hudson,  the  Susquehanna,  the  St.  Law- 
rence, the  Ohio,  the  Mississippi,  and  the  Missouri,  the  ex- 
iled priests  of  France  labored  fruitfully  everywhere,  leaving 
behind  names  revered  alike  by  Protestant  and  by  Catholic, 
names  to  be  ever  blessed  by  those  who  have  succeeded  to 
their  labors  and  glory  in  being  their  spiritual  children : 
Cheverus  in  New  England,  Dubois  and  Brute  and  Mar6chal 
in  our  Middle  States,  Flaget  and  his  noble  associates  in 
the  West,  Dubourg  and  Odin  in  New  Orleans — these  are 
only  a  few  among  a  host  of  great  and  good  men  who 
brought  with  them  from  France  the  inextinguishable  fire 
of  apostolic  zeal  and  priestly  virtue  to  .our  shores.  In 
Canada,  too,  these  saintly  fugitives  found  a  refuge,  a  home, 
and  a  congenial  field.  He  who  writes  these  lines  treasures 
as  one  of  the  dearest  recollections  of  his  boyhood  the 
memory  and  friendship  of  these  French  refugees. 

The  scepticism  popularized  in  France  by  Voltaire  and 
the  Encyclopedists,  and  the  fearful  moral  corruption  im- 
planted in  court  and  castle,  in  city  and  country,  by  the  ex- 
ample of  Louis  XIV.  and  Louis  XV.,  had  not  quenched  in 
the  France  of  St.  Louis  the  living  faith  and  the  chival- 
rous zeal  of  the  crusader-king. 

Yes,  truly,  the  Church  of  France,  much  as  it  had  suf- 
fered in  the  great  Revolution,  profoundly  as  it  had  been 
modified  by  the  changes  which  the  First  Consul  had  exact- 
ed from  Pius  VII.,  and  fiercely  as  it  had  been  assailed  and 
thwarted  and  restricted  by  political  parties,  by  the  formid- 
able sceptic  press,  and  by  unfriendly  governments,  was  in 
1846,  when  Monsignor  Pecci  visited  the  splendid  capital  of 
the  Orleans  monarchy,  a  majestic  edifice  with  its  founda- 
tions solidly  resting  on  the  reverence  and  devotion  of  the 
masses,  and  doing  its  work  with  an  enlightened  and  exem- 
plary clergy,  and  through  the  instrumentality  of  institu- 
tions which  had  not  their  equal  in  numbers  nor  their  su- 
perior in  excellence  in  any  Catholic  country,  save,  perhaps, 
in  Italy  and  within  the  Papal  States. 

And  everything  in  the  Church  of  France  went  on  pro- 
gressing in  excellence  after  the  downfall  of  Louis  Phi- 


THE  STRUGGLE  BETWEEN  GOOD  AND  EVIL. 


5°  I 


lippe,  during  the  short-lived  Republic  of  1848-52,  and  even 
under  the  corrupting  and  demoralizing  reign  of  the  last 
Napoleon — everything:  Religious  Orders,  establishments  of 
education,  charity,  and  beneficence,  schools  of  every  grade, 
from  the  infant-asylum  schools  up  to  the  numerous  Jesuit 
colleges  which  rivalled  on  every  point  of  France  the  ly- 
ceum-colleges  of  the  French  University,  and  confessedly 
surpassed  them  in  literary  and  scientific  efficiency,  as  they 
most  assuredly  did  in  the  religious  training  their  great 
schools  gave  to  Catholic  youth.  Look  back  and  remember 
how  admirably  organized  was,  in  every  diocese  of  France, 
the  methods  of  pulpit  and  catechistical  instruction  devised 
by  the  bishop  and  his  clergy  for  the  mental  training  of  all 
classes  of  their  people.  We,  who  were  brought  up  among 
a  people  where  Sunday  preaching  and  Sunday-schools  and 
Christian  Doctrine  Societies  were  standing  and  flourishing 
popular  institutions,  cannot  recall  without  wonder  what  we 
beheld  in  France  during  well-nigh  eight  years  spent  there, 
mixing  with  all  ranks  of  her  people  as  a  missionary,  speak- 
ing their  own  tongue,  and  laboring  among  them  in  the 
capital  as  well  as  in  the  provincial  cities  and  country  parts. 
Every  bishop  vied  with  his  brother  bishop  in  devising 
every  possible  method  for  conveying  religious  instruction 
to  young  and  old.  Think  of  the  great  names  which  adorn- 
ed the  French  pulpit  under  the  last  Bourbons,  Louis  Phi- 
lippe, and  Napoleon.  And  those  whose  eloquence  shone 
in  the  cathedrals  outside  of  Paris  were  men  who  must  have 
shone  anywhere  by  their  superior  gifts.  Add  to  this  the  glo 
rious  Catholic  literature  which  addressed  itself  to  the  quick 
French  intelligence  in  every  walk  of  life,  and  which  aimed  at 
counteracting  the  terrible  propaganda  of  error,  corruption, 
unbelief,  socialism,  and  revolutionism,  of  which  the  French 
University,  independent  of  the  Church  and  supported  by 
the  treasure  and  the  influence  of  the  state,  was  only  one 
mighty  ally,  and  not  by  any  means  the  mightiest. 

The  official  teaching  in  the  French  University  was,  as 
is  notorious,  leavened  by  scepticism  when  at  its  best  in  the 
present  century;  it  always  combated  the  Church,  discre- 


5O2  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

dited  Christianity,  ridiculed  I  he  clergy,  and  held  them  up 
to  hatred  or  suspicion  when  it  did  not  hold  them  up  to 
contempt.  The  French  medical  schools  taught  the  bald- 
est materialism ;  the  French  law  schools  a  rampant  Eras- 
tianism ;  the  French  scientific  and  military  schools  laughed 
at  all  religion  and  turned  out  practical  atheists.  French 
novels  and  the  French  theatre,  aided  by  all  the  charms  of 
exquisite  elegance  of  diction  and  the  fascinations  of  the 
stage  and  the  opera,  taught  and  sang  but  one  thing — the 
triumph  of  vice.  Think  of  Eugene  Sue,  and  Alexandre 
Dumas,  and  Balzac,  and  George  Sand,  and  a  host  of  oth- 
ers who  only  lacked  a  little  of  the  pre-eminence  in  evil 
of  those  we  have  named.  And  the  French  daily  and 
periodical  press!  With  the  exception  of  the  few  excellent 
journals  which  defended  the  cause  of  religion,  journalistic 
literature  in  France,  the  ablest,  cleverest,  most  fascinating 
in  the  world,  was  in  the  hands  of  scepticism,  unbelief,  and 
all  those  then  secret  and  mighty  organizations  which,  by 
various  methods,  were  working  out  one  purpose — the  over- 
throw in  France  of  the  Church  and  of  social  order. 

Such  were,  on  both  sides,  the  antagonistic  forces  at 
work  as  Joachim  Pecci  had  beheld  them  on  the  spot,  and 
continued  to  watch  ever  at  Perugia.  It  is  in  the  moral 
world  as  in  the  physical — a  tyro  can  construe  what  is  known 
as  the  parallelogram  of  forces,  and  deduce  from  the  figure, 
by  a  very  simple  calculation,  the  resultant.  On  which  side, 
in  France,  was  arrayed  the  mightiest  sum  of  moral  force? 
On  that  of  irreligion  and  revolution.  All  the  power  and 
influence  of  government,  legislature,  of  the  University  and 
the  army  of  professors  and  teachers  in  its  pay,  of  the  press, 
the  theatre,  the  clubs,  all  the  training  of  the  great  schools 
which  fed  the  army,  the  navy,  the  various  departments  of 
engineering  in  a  great  manufacturing  and  commercial  coun- 
try, were  on  the  side  of  irreligion  ;  on  the  other  there  was 
a  sum  of  active  forces  far  inferior  to  those  controlled  by 
unbelief.  The  numerical  majority,  made  up  of  the  popular 
masses  ///  the  country,  were  indeed  on  the  side  of  religion ; 
but  they  were  mere  inert  and  inactive  matter* 


ANTI-CHRISTIAN  SOCIETIES  MASTERS  OF  FRANCE.    503 

When,  after  thirty-two  years,  Joachim  Pecci  became  Leo 
XIII.,  what  saw  he  ? 

In  what  were  the  leading  classes,  as  well  as  among  the 
laboring  population  of  the  cities,  there  was  a  sum  of  active 
forces  on  the  side  of  unbelief  which  far  outbalanced  those 
of  religion.  The  former  would  hesitate  at  no  violence  to 
carry  their  ends.  The  latter  could  only  use  moral  means ; 
armed  resistance,  for  them,  was  out  of  the  question. 

This  was  well  known  to  the  men  who  overthrew  the 
MacMahon  government  and  placed  Jules  Grevy  in  the 
presidential  chair.  They  knew  that  if  they  could  make  up 
their  minds  to  set  aside  all  the  laws  which  protected  or 
favored  religion  in  France,  even  the  Concordat,  and  sup- 
pressed, one  after  the  other,  all  the  institutions  of  Catho- 
licism, and  set  up  the  state,  as  in  Italy,  to  be  the  absolute 
and  irresistible  master  of  property,  of  liberty,  of  life,  that 
no  leader  would  stand  forth  to  bid  Catholics  arm  and  de- 
fend their  homes,  their  altars,  and  their  schools. 

And,  knowing  this,  they  have  acted  on  it,  progressing 
year  after  year  in  their  career  of  disfranchisement,  confisca- 
tion, and  oppression. 

What  could  the  Pope  do  ?  In  France — let  us  say  it 
openly — it  was  the  secret  societies  which  elected  M.  Grevy, 
as  it  was  they  who  had  upset  Marshal  MacMahon.  Conse- 
quently the  Church  found  itself,  under  the  new  regime,  ab- 
solutely in  the  power  of  its  deadliest  foe.  Was  it  to  be 
thought  that  the  foe  who  had  been  striving  ever  since  1816 
to  gain  this  very  victory  over  the  Church  would  forego  his 
advantage  ?  There  could  be  no  treaty  of  peace  and  amity 
between  the  two  powers.  One  must  perish,  and  that  was 
Catholicism,  in  so  far  as  human  might  can  kill  it. 

And  what  was  Leo  XIII.  to  do  ?  What  counsels  could 
he  give  the  French  bishops,  the  French  Catholic  laity,  Ca- 
tholic journalists,  and  organized  Catholic  bodies  in  France  ? 
There  was  no  alternative,  since  armed  resistance  was  out  of 
the  question,  but  to  be  patient,  to  be  united,  to  keep  to- 
gether, to  help  and  sustain  and  cheer  each  other  in  a  pas 
sive  resistance  which  should  make  use  of  all  the  means  of 


504  LIFE  OF  LEO  XI If. 

persuasion  and  all  the  force  of  public  opinion  won  by  put- 
ting all  the  wrong  on  the  side  of  the  enemy,  and  leaving  it 
in  the  power  of  no  man  to  censure  justly  word  or  act  of  the 
oppressed  majority. 

1880  came,  and  the  Church  of  France  found  herself  and 
all  her  glorious  institutions,  rights,  and  liberties  at  the  mercy 
of  Jules  Ferry  and  Paul  Bert. 

Gambetta,  the  sworn  enemy  of  the  Church  of  his  coun- 
try, had  risen  to  be  prime  minister,  and  had  fallen ;  and 
then  came  his  sudden  death.  His  war-cry  had  been,  Down 
with  the  clergy  !  He  had  made  the  term  clerical  as  odious, 
as  hated  as  ever  the  name  of  Jesuit  had  been.  But  cttrical- 
ism,  with  him,  meant  more  than  the  priest  ;  it  meant  the 
religion,  the  belief,  the  worship  of  which  he  was  the  min- 
ister. 

But  even  Gambetta,  it  was  thought  when  he  took  the 
reins  of  administration  in  his  hands,  would  be  more  conser- 
vative than  his  principles  and  former  professions.  So  the 
propelling  force  behind  him — the  blind,  pitiless,  relentless 
force  of  the  secret  clubs — pushed  him  out  of  the  way,  and 
then  came,  after  his  death,  the  sweeping  measures  of  sup- 
pression, confiscation,  and  persecution  devised  by  the  Ferry 
ministry. 

The  French  bishops  in  this  emergency  were  not  to  be 
silenced  by  the  fear  of  state  prosecutions  or  by  the  with- 
drawal of  their  salaries.  The  venerable  Cardinal  Guibert, 
Archbishop  of  Paris,  sent  to  the  government  an  eloquent 
and  energetic  protest  against  the  suppression  of  the  Reli- 
gious Orders  in  France.  It  had  no  more  effect,  nor  had  the 
protests  of  his  colleagues,  in  shaming  the  ministers  and  the 
legislature  into  a  sense  of  right-doing  than  shouting  at  the 
rushing  waters  of  Niagara  or  shaking  one's  fist  at  the  mighty 
cataract  could  arrest  for  an  instant  the  steady  downpour  of 
the  great  river. 

What  the  nuncio  in  Paris,  Monsignor  Czacki,  attempted 
or  effected  to  second  the  resistance  of  the  French  hierarchy 
we  need  not  detail  here.  His  conduct  was  the  theme  of 
adverse  and  conflicting  criticisms, 


LETTER  OF  LEO  XIII.    TO  CARDINAL  GUI  BERT.       505 

But  in  October,  1880,  while  there  still  remained  some 
faint  hope  of  making  the  French  government  pause  in 
their  prescriptive  measures,  Leo  XIII.  wrote  to  the  French 
bishops,  through  the  Cardinal-Archbishop  of  Paris,  one  of 
those  stirring  letters  which  are  at  one  and  the  same  time 
an  appeal  to  the  calm  reason  of  statesmen,  based  on  the 
highest  principles  of  national  self-interest,  social  order,  re- 
ligion, justice,  and  equity,  and  a  plea  addressed  to  the  deep- 
est sentiments  of  the  heart — gratitude  for  past  services  and 
respect  for  the  loftiest  convictions  and  the  noblest  deeds  of 
self-sacrifice. 

The  Religious  Orders  of  both  men  and  women  had,  the 
government  pretended,  arisen  and  taken  root  in  France 
without  the  sanction  of  the  law  or  in  spite  of  its  prohibi- 
tory statutes.  The  weakness  of-  this  plea — a  shallow  pre- 
text which  everybody  saw  through — was  demonstrated  by 
the  fact  that,  when  the  edict  of  suppression  was  brought 
before  the  law-courts  for  their  sanction  and  as  a  preliminary 
to  immediate  execution,  upwards  of  five  hundred  magis- 
trates resigned  their  position  on  the  bench  rather  than 
sanction  even  by  silent  acquiescence  the  illegal  and  mon- 
strous iniquity  contemplated  by  the  party  in  power. 

To  their  solemn  and  indignant  protest  Leo  XIII.  added 
his  own. 

He  cannot  accept  the  practical  premise  on  which  Jules 
Ferry  and  Paul  Bert  base  their  action — that  the  Church,  in 
the  full  integrity  of  her  vital  organism  and  the  full  liberty 
of  her  action,  has  not  a  right  to  exist  in  France.  She  was 
there  before  the  arrival  of  Clovis  and  his  Franks ;  her  in- 
fluence and  action  were  the  civilizing  and  organizing  forces 
which  built  up  the  nation  ;  they  helped  mainly  to  give  it 
the  foremost  place  among  those  of  Christendom  and  the 
world. 

"  Wherever  the  Catholic  Church  freely  exists,"  Leo 
XIII.  writes,  "  there  Religious  Orders  spontaneously  grow 
up  ;  they  spring  from  the  Church  as  the  branch  from  the 
trunk  of  the  tree.  They  are  the  auxiliaries  whose  help  the 
bishops  find  to  be  especially  necessary  in  our  days,  helping 


506  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

by  their  skill  and  industry  the  secular  clergy  in  their  minis- 
trations, and  relieving  by  Christian  charity  the  needs  of  the 
poor." 

He  praises  the  cardinal  for  showing,  in  his  eloquent  let- 
ter to  the  government,  "  that  there  is  no  form  of  civil  con- 
stitution to  which  Religious  Orders  are  adverse  or  inimical  ; 
that  it  is  for  the  interest  of  public  order  and  peace  to  allow 
so  many  inoffensive  citizens  full  freedom  to  lead  a  quiet 
and  orderly  life  ;  that  it  does  not  beseem  men  who  wish 
well  to  their  countrymen  to  break  in  appearance  with  the 
religion  which  all  profess,  and  to  persecute  the  faith  re- 
ceived from  their  parents  and  ancestors." 

The  great  pretence  of  the  men  who  are  either  opposed 
in  theory  to  the  existence  of  Monastic  Orders  in  the  Church, 
or  who,  in  practice,  are  in  favor  of  their  extinction,  is  that 
they  are  only  excrescences  on  the  organisrn  of  the  Church, 
and  that  ^he  is  better  without  them.  To  this  the  great 
teacher  of  Christendom  replies: 

"  The  distinguished  men  against  whom  the  sword  of  the 
law  was  thus  sharpened  were  the  lawful  offspring  of  the 
Church,  carefully  trained  by  her  to  all  that  is  honorable  in 
virtue  and  in  literary  culture.  Civilization  is  immensely 
indebted  to  them  in  more  than  one  respect,  for  their  holy 
lives  were  to  the  people  a  perpetual  exhortation  to  virtue, 
and  their  learning  shed  a  lustre  on  the  spheres  both  of 
sacred  and  of  profane  knowledge ;  their  immortal  works 
have  enriched  every  department  of  the  fine  arts."  * 

The  mind  of  the  Pope  travels  back  to  those  ages  when 
France  was  troubled  by  no  religious  divisions,  when  the 
entire  mass  of  her  people  were  of  one  religious  faith  and 
the  laborious  zeal  of  their  clergy  was  taxed  to  the  utmost. 

"Whenever,"  he  says,  "there  was  a  scarcity  of  secular 

*  In  the  France  of  the  nineteenth  century  it  is  needful  only  to  mention, 
in  sacred  oratory,  the  names  of  Lacordaire  and  Monsabre  among  the  Do- 
minicans, those  of  De  Ravignan  and  Felix  among  the  Jesuits  ;  in  general 
learning  and  scholarship  the  names  of  Dom  Gueranger  and  Cardinal  Pitra, 
Benedictines,  of  Fathers  Cahier  and  Martin,  the  authors  of  the  grandest 
work  of  descriptive  art  of  our  times,  "  Les  Vitraux  de  Boujges." 


A  NOBLE  DEFENCE  OF  THE  RELIGIOUS  ORDERS.      507 

priests,  from  the  cloister  issued  bands  of  holy  laborers, 
whose  extraordinary  wisdom  and  skill  helped  the  bishops 
to  foster  piety  among  the  people,  to  train  youth  to  the 
knowledge  of  letters  and  the  practices  of  a  virtuous  life. 

"  Of  the  missionaries  sent  to  preach  the  Gospel  to  bar- 
barous countries,  the  majority  have  been  furnished  by  the 
monastic  communities  in  France.  Their  labors  in  the  cause 
of  Christianity  have  spread  the  name  of  France  with  the 
light  of  the  Gospel  to  the  remotest  nations  of  the  earth. 

"  There  is  no  sort  of  misery  which  can  befall  our  com- 
mon humanity  that  these  religious  men  and  women  have 
not  alleviated,  no  form  of  calamity  known  to  us  that  they 
have  not  remedied — in  hospitals,  in  asylums  for  the  poorest 
of  the  poor,  during  the  periods  of  peace  and  leisurely  en- 
joyment in  civil  communities  as  well  as  amid  the  heat  and 
turmoil  of  war.  And  all  these  ministrations  they  per- 
formed with  that  pitying  gentleness  which  can  only  spring 
from  divine  charity.  Of  this  charity  you  have  before  your 
eyes  illustrious  examples  in  every  province  and  city  and 
village." 

The  Pope  then  enumerates  the  testimonies  given  by 
leading  men  of  every  class  to  the  merits  and  services  of  the 
Religious  Orders.  It  was  all  in  vain.  Vainly  also  did  the 
magistrates  resign  their  seats  upon  the  bench  of  justice. 
Equally  vain  were  the  remonstrances  and  protests  of  the 
French  bishops.  Nothing  could  save  the  doomed  commu- 
nities. The  Jesuits,  the  Pope  says,  were  the  first  expelled. 
"The  nuncio  in  Paris  was  ordered  to  protest,  and  to  declare 
that  the  Society  of  Jesus  is  not  only  guiltless  of  any  crime, 
but  deserving  of  all  praise  on  account  of  the  exalted  merit 
of  its  members,  for  their  learning,  their  charity,  their  zeal 
in  educating  youth.  All  France  bears  witness  to  their 
worth  by  entrusting  its  children  to  their  care." 

The  nuncio's  protest  having  produced  no  effect  on  the 
government,  the  Holy  Father  was  about  to  raise  his  voice 
in  remonstrance,  condemning  the  acts  of  the  persecutor, 
when  it  was  proposed  to  him  that  the  Religious  Orders 
might  be  saved  from  suppression  and  dispersion  if  they 


508  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

would  only  unite  in  drawing  up  and  signing  a  solemn  decla- 
ration and  pledge  to  the  effect  that  they  had  no  part  and 
would  have  no  part  in  political  movements,  and  adhered  to 
no  political  party. 

This,  the  Sovereign  Pontiff  thought,  violated  no  princi- 
ple of  Catholic  doctrine  or  morality,  while  it  would  avert 
from  the  Church  of  France  a  measureless  calamity.  It 
would  also  wrest  from  the  enemy  a  ready  and  powerful 
weapon  of  attack. 

The  proposal  of  such  a  pledge,  however,  fell  like  a 
bombshell  among  the  justly  alarmed  and  excited  French 
Catholics.  Their  organs  in  the  press  discussed  its  oppor- 
tuneness, its  necessity,  and  its  consequences  with  extreme 
warmth,  the  result  of  strong  and  sincere  convictions. 

The  Holy  See,  anxious  to  save  the  mighty  religious  in- 
terests so  seriously  threatened  in  France,  did  not  look  with 
disfavor  on  such  a  united  declaration.  As  a  basis  on  which 
should  repose  this  profession  of  neutrality  as  between  mere 
conflicting  political  parties  and  opinions,  the  Pope  sketches 
the  nature  and  aim  of  monastic  life.  Their  utter  unworld- 
liness  in  the  midst  of  the  world,  and  the  sublime  services 
which  their  spirit  of  detachment  enables  them  to  render, 
ought  to  protect  them  from  the  suspicion  of  worldly  pas- 
sions or  political  partisanship. 

"A  thing  well  and  familiarly  known  to  this  Apostolic 
See,"  he  says,  "  is  the  purpose  for  which,  in  the  Catholic 
Church,  men  or  women  unite  together  to  form  religious  so- 
cieties. There  is,  first  of  all,  the  desire  to  promote  in  the 
members  themselves  the  practice  of  spiritual  perfection  in 
the  highest  degree.  As  to  the  outward  form  of  active  life 
selected  for  itself  by  each  order,  their  only  aim  is  to  help  to 
secure  the  eternal  salvation  of  their  fellow-men  or  to  aid  in 
relieving  the  various  forms  of  human  suffering.  This  two- 
fold course  of  activity  is  daily  pursued  in  each  order  with 
marvellous  assiduity  and  cheerfulness." 

So  much  for  the  character  of  Religious  Orders  as  such. 
Now,  what  should  or  might  be  their  attitude  toward  the 
civil  constitution  and  the  political  parties  in  the  state? 


THE  CATHOLIC  CHURCH  AND  CIVIL  GOVERNMENTS.     509 

"  The  Catholic  Church  neither  blames  nor  condemns  any 
form  of  state  constitution.  The  institutions  of  the  Church 
herself,  deriving  their  origin  from  purposes  of  public  utility, 
can  flourish  under  any  government,  whether  the  executive 
or  judiciary  power  be  exercised  therein  by  one  or  by  more. 
As  to  the  Apostolic  See,  which  has  to  maintain  relations 
with  governments  in  the  midst  of  political  changes  and 
revolutions,  its  sole  purpose  is  to  secure  the  interests  of  the 
Christian  religion.  It  never  intends,  nor  can  intend,  to  vio- 
late the  rights  of  any  government,  no  matter  by  whom  ad- 
ministered. It  is,  therefore,  certain  that  in  all  things  where 
we  do  no  injustice  to  others  we  should  obey  those  in  au- 
thority. Nor  by  so  obeying  do  we  sanction  whatever  is 
wrong,  either  in  the  constitution  or  in  the  administration. 

"Such  being  the  rules  of  public  conduct  enjoined  on  all 
Catholics  without  distinction,  there  could  be  no  objection 
to  the  declaration  demanded  of  the  Religious  Orders. 

"  But  it  is  not  a  little  surprising  that  a  proposal  of  this 
kind,  entertained  at  a  moment  when  the  very  weightiest  in- 
terests were  at  stake,  and  for  the  purpose  of  saving  both 
Church  and  state,  should  have  found  little  favor  with  men 
otherwise  estimable  and  known  for  their  talent  and  zeal  in 
defending  Catholicism." 

The  controversy  raised  on  this  point  was  a  sore  matter 
on  both  sides  of  the  Alps.  What  rendered  the  opposition 
of  the  journalists  alluded  to  most  distasteful  to  the  Holy 
See  was  the  fact  that  the  declaration  in  question  had  the 
sanction  of  the  French  bishops. 

It  turned  out,  nevertheless,  that  this  negotiation  was 
only  a  trap  laid  by  the  government  to  create  dissension  in 
the  Catholic  ranks,  to  elicit  expressions  of  opinion  and  sen- 
timent that  might  enable  MM.  Ferry  and  Bert  to  strike 
with  more  visible  grounds  of  justice  such  communities  as 
would  prove  to  be  unyielding. 

The  Holy  Father  confesses  the  failure  of  this  sort  of 
compromise.  "  It  is  most  sad  to  say,"  the  letter  goes  on, 
"  that  the  French  government  pursued  its  intended  course. 
Every  day  brings  us  sad  news  from  that  country.  The  re- 


5  10  LIFE  OF  LEO  XI II. 

maining  Religious  Orders  are  scattered  and  suppressed. 
The  fresh  calamity  thus  befallen  France,  and  which  she 
herself  keenly  feels,  fills  us  with  the  deepest  concern,  the 
most  intense  anxiety.  We  detest  and  deplore  the  wrong 
done  to  the  Catholic  religion." 

There  was  just  cause  for  all  the  fears  of  the  Pontiff. 
Nothing  could  arrest  the  progress  of  the  decal Italicizing 
spirit  in  France — nothing  but  the  fear  of  a  civil  war.  Of 
this,  however,  there  was  no  danger.  The  Catholics — the 
nominal  Catholics  at  least,  who  were  in  overwhelming  ma- 
jority— allowed  every  constitutional  agency  for  asserting 
their  own  will  to  be  taken  from  them  by  their  determined, 
sleepless,  unscrupulous,  and  energetic  enemies.  The  public 
offices,  from  the  highest  to  the  lowest  in  the  state,  the 
ballot-box,  the  parliamentary  representation,  the  command 
of  the  army  and  navy — all  was  taken  away  from  them 
by  degrees,  and  that  because  they  lacked  union  and  organi- 
zation. 

It  is  one  of  the  saddest  spectacles  of  modern  times  to 
see  thirty  millions  of  French  Catholic  citizens  virtually  dis- 
franchised, oppressed,  and  deprived  of  their  most  precious 
religious  liberties  by  a  small  minority,  because  they  did  not 
know  how  to  forget  their  political  dissentiments,  to  unite 
like  one  man  to  assert  their  rights,  and  to  use  every  means 
allowed  by  the  constitution  and  by  conscience  to  withstand 
the  usurpations  of  a  godless  minority. 

What  is  most  saddening  in  this  condition  of  a  nation 
which  had  played  so  glorious  a  part  in  Christendom  is  to 
see  the  downward  progress  of  Socialism  and  Anarchism  keep 
a  steady  pace  with  the  legislative  and  administrative  mea- 
sures which,  step  by  step,  dechristianize  every  one  of  the 
public  institutions  of  France,  and  bring  the  Church  within 
the  jurisdiction  of  the  republic  to  a  worse  state,  in  many 
respects,  than  it  was  in  1794  and  1795. 

What  intellectual  and  moral  poison  has  perverted  the 
judgment  of  Frenchmen,  naturally  so  quick  and  penetrat- 
ing, or  so  deadened  their  naturally  noble  disposition  as  to 
make  them  form  so  false  a  notion  of  freedom,  and  to  mis- 


SAD  CONDITION  OF  FRENCH  CA  THOLICS.  5  1  I 

take  its  dictates  in  practice  for  an  injunction  to  oppress  all 
who  differ  from  themselves  in  opinion  ? 

It  is  a  problem.  And  it  is  a  pity.  But  it  is  none 
the  less  all  too  true.  And  this  intolerance,  this  unnatu- 
ral, fanatical  intolerance,  of  all  that  is  religious  or  godly, 
or  morally  fair  and  noble,  is  at  present  the  bane  of  France. 
Liberty  interverted  into  meaning,  in  practice,  the  freedom 
for  one's  self  to  think  and  act  as  one  pleases,  but  to  stran- 
gle free  thought  and  free  action  in  others,  is  bringing  on — 
has,  rather,  already*  brought  on — Communism  in  France, 
and  will  soon  bring  on  anarchy  and  a  second  division  of 
France. 

If  the  nations  round  about  had  combined  and  sworn  to 
divide  France,  ungoverned  and  ungovernable,  as  was  once 
done  with  unhappy  Poland,  they  only  have  to  wait  patient- 
ly for  the  outcome  of  the  present  mad  race  to  destruction. 
If  things  go  on,  within  another  decade  the  former  kingdom 
of  St.  Louis  will  be  without  a  single  form  of  tolerated  pub- 
lic worship,  without  a  single  cathedral  devoted  to  religion ; 
the  country  which,  under  Napoleon  I.,  dictated  laws  to  Eu- 
rope, will  have  neither  an  effective  army  to  defend  her  fron- 
tiers nor  a  fleet  to  guard  her  coasts. 

That  is  what  the  "  party  of  action  "  in  the  government 
and  the  legislature  are  bringing  the  country  to,  as  certainly 
as  the  yellow  waters  of  the  Tiber  will  find  their  way  to 
Ostia  and  the  Mediterranean. 

And  this  is  what  we  Americans — and  we  Irish-Ameri- 
cans in  particular — pray  God  with  all  our  heart  to  avert 
from  misgoverned  France,  so  dear  to  us  for  many  reasons. 

Leo  XIII.  has  been  and  is  still  severely  blamed  by 
many  French  Catholics  for  what  they  consider  his  policy 
of  unwise  and  fatal  conciliation.  It  is  a  strange  censure, 
seeing  that  the  Holy  See,  in  the  circumstances  which  we 
have  been  describing,  must  choose  between  firm  remon 
strances,  representations,  and  endeavors  to  conciliate,  or 
band  all  French  Catholics  together  in  a  great  and  com- 

*  March,  1886. 


5  I  2  LIFE  OF  LEO  AY/A 

pactly  organized  national  league,  showing  to  the  govern- 
ment and  the  radicals  behind  them  a  solid  and  unbroken 
front,  resisting  every  measure  of  suppression,  of  confisca- 
tion, of  encroachment  on  religious  liberty  by  determined, 
united,  and  constitutional  action.  But  would  French  Ca- 
tholics have  so  united  at  his  bidding? 

Who  among  the  Catholic  leaders  of  France,  lay  or 
clerical,  suggested  or  initiated  the  formation  of  such  a 
league?  Now  that  the  mischief  has  been  done,  and  that 
all  constitutional  safeguards  possessed  by  the  Catholic 
Church  in  France  are  being  swept  away  one  by  one,  till 
the  very  cathedrals  are  allowed  to  fall  into  ruin  previous  to 
their  being  confiscated,  it  is  too  late  to  look  back  and  say 
what  should  have  been  done,  when  all  men  knew  what  MM. 
Ferry  and  Bert  meant,  and  what  was  really  intended  by  the 
parliamentary  majority  behind  them. 

It  was  for  the  French  Catholics  themselves,  constitut- 
ing the  great  mass  of  the  nation — for  bishops,  priests,  and 
laymen — to  come  together,  to  take  counsel,  as  they  did  in 
Germany  at  the  approach  of  danger.  It  behooved  them  in 
presence  of  the  enemy  to  forget  all  private  or  local  differ- 
ences, all  party  feuds ;  to  forget  that  they  were  Legitimists, 
Orleanists,  Bonapartists,  or  Republicans,  and  to  remember 
only  that  they  were  Christians.  It  behooved  them,  speak- 
ing in  the  name  of  a  Catholic  nation,  to  draw  up  a  declara- 
tion of  rights,  every  line  and  word  of  which  should  com- 
mend itself  to  the  approbation  of  Rome  and  the  applause 
of  every  civilized  man  all  over  the  world  in  favor  of  liberty 
of  conscience  and  the  sacred  laws  which  guard  the  family, 
the  home,  the  school,  and  the  Church. 

They  should  not  have  waited  for  any  invitation  from 
the  Sovereign  Pontiff  to  do  so.  It  was  their  acknowledged 
right,  and  it  was  the  sacred  duty  of  the  hour,  to  do  so. 
There  is  no  use  in  denying  it,  the  fatal  dissentiments  and 
bickerings  which  had  so  long  divided  French  Catholics 
among  themselves,  and  which  still  found  vent  in  the  reli- 
gious press,  kept  minds  and  hearts  and  men  asunder,  while 
the  common  foe,  the  enemy  of  religion  and  social  order, 


CARD.  GUIBERT'S  LETTER    TO  PRESIDENT  GREVY.     513 

was  storming  the  outworks  of  the  citadel  of  faith.  When 
these  had  been  swept  away,  did  the  Catholics  unite  like  one 
man  to  defend  the  very  heart  of  their  position? 

But  after  the  elections  of  1885,  when  every  priest  who 
dared  to  advise  his  parishioners  to  vote  for  a  Catholic  can- 
didate in  opposition  to  a  Radical  or  government  man  was 
punished  by  losing  his  salary,  and  when  a  new  school-law 
was  passed  disqualifying  all  persons  belonging  to  religious 
communities  for  teaching  in  primary  schools,  the  venerable 
Cardinal  Guibert,  Archbishop  of  Paris,  broke  silence,  and 
wrote  to  the  President  of  the  Republic  the  following  letter, 
which  describes  the  exact  situation  of  the  Church  in  France 
with  regard  to  the  so-called  Republic: 

"PARIS,  March  30,  1886. 
"•  To  the  President  of  the  Republic  : 

"MR.  PRESIDENT:  The  Church  of  France  is  passing 
through  a  period  of  painful  trials.  She  complains  of  being 
made  the  object  of  rigorous  treatment  by  the  state ;  and 
the  state  accuses  her  of  having  called  forth  such  rigor  by 
setting  herself  in  opposition  to  the  government  which  the 
country  has  chosen  for  itself.  As  the  conflict  grows  daily 
in  bitterness  you  will  not  be  surprised  if  the  oldest  among 
the  French  bishops,  he  in  whose  diocese  the  government 
has  its  seat,  addresses  himself  to  you  as  the  chief  executive, 
and  conveys  to  you,  together  with  his  respectful  protes- 
tations, the  just  complaints,  which  are,  I  doubt  it  not,  in 
conformity  with  the  general  sentiment  among  my  brother- 
bishops. 

"  How  can  we  allow  the  public  to  give  credit,  through 
our  silence,  to  accusations  which  entirely  misrepresent  our 
attitude  and  can  only  lead  public  opinion  astray  ?  Up  to 
this  moment  the  French  clergy  have  given  proof  of  a 
patience  and  moderation  that  deserve  higher  praise  than 
that  of  being  called  exemplary.  Wishing  before  all  things 
to  maintain  peace,  and  thereby  to  obey  the  wise  directions 
given  by  the  Sovereign  Pontiff,  they  have  uncomplainingly 
endured  much  injustice.  They  have  only  raised  their  voice 


5  1 4  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

to  defend  the  spiritual  interests  of  their  flocks,  the  teach- 
ing of  religious  doctrine,  the  necessities  of  public  worship ; 
and  in  so  doing  they  have  shown  temper  and  moderation, 
demanding  only  of  the  public  authorities  that  they  should 
be  shown  the  same  justice  and  kindness  so  honorably 
granted  them  by  preceding  governments. 

"  They  have  been  reproached  with  having,  during  the 
last  elections,  been  favorable  to  the  opposition  candidates. 
If  there  be  truth  in  this  accusation,  we  can  affirm  that  poli- 
tics had  no  influence  on  the  minds  of  the  electors,  who,  in 
voting,  only  thought  of  the  result  the  ballot-box  would 
have  on  the  interests  of  religion. 

"  There  were  two  classes  of  candidates — one  class  com- 
posed of  persons  who  wished  to  preserve  religious  instruc- 
tion, to  protect  freedom  of  worship,  and  to  favor  Christian 
good  works  ;  the  other  class  were  those  who  announced 
openly  their  intention  of  extinguishing  at  once,  or  in  the 
very  near  future,  the  Catholic  faith  among  us.  Who  would 
hold  it  to  be  a  crime  in  priests  to  show  a  preference  for  the 
former?  It  was  a  conscientious  duty  to  do  so,  and  a  fulfil- 
ment of  the  mission  received  by  them  from  the  Church, 
and,  one  might  say,  from  the  state  itself. 

"  No ;  the  clergy  never  have  made  in  the  past,  nor  do 
they  make  at  present,  a  systematic  and  hostile  opposition 
to  existing  institutions.  If  they  show  either  coldness  or 
uneasiness,  these  dispositions  so  loudly  complained  of  only 
became  manifest  when  the  representatives  of  the  govern- 
ment joined  hands  openly  with  the  enemies  of  religion.  If 
the  republic  would  only  accept  the  obligation  incumbent 
on  all  governments  of  respecting  the  belief  and  the  wor- 
ship of  the  immense  majority  of  our  countrymen,  nothing 
in  the  teaching  of  the  Church  or  in  her  traditions  could 
have  justified  a  priest  in  distrusting  the  republic  or  in 
opposing  it.  But  if  the  men  who  have  taken  on  them- 
selves to  establish  these  political  forms  in  France  have  at 
the  same  time  made  it  their  task  to  wound  all  men's  con- 
sciences, if  every  year  of  their  sway  has  been  remarkable 
for  some  blow  aimed  at  one  or  other  of  our  Catholic 


WHAT  THE  CHURCH  HAS  SUFFERED  IN  FRANCE.  515 

institutions,  how,  I  ask  again,  can  churchmen  be  blamed 
for  preferring  those  who  protect  them  to  those  who  plunder 
them,  those  who  respect  their  ministry  to  those  who  vilify 
it,  those  who  favor  the  influence  of  religion  on  men's  minds 
to  those  who  labor  to  destroy  it? 

"  To  the  prejudiced,  who  still  wonder  at  the  conduct  of 
the  clergy,  I  would  say :  Read  over  the  records  of  the  last 
five  years.  In  1880  the  Religious  Orders  are  dispersed  on 
the  authority  of  contested  laws  and  without  having  ob- 
tained judgment  from  the  courts.  At  the  same  time  trea- 
sury laws,  which  impose  a  heavier  burden  every  year,  fall 
oppressively  on  communities  of  religious  women,  regardless 
of  the  immense  services  they  render  to  the  poor,  to  the  sick, 
to  the  youth  of  the  country.  In  1882  a  school-law  blots 
out  religion  from  the  programme  of  public  instruction,  and 
inflicts  on  Christian  France,  under  the  name  of  neutrality — a 
name  hitherto  unknown — the  stigma  of  official  atheism. 
Year  after  year  the  budget  of  public  worship  is  cut  down. 
In  the  space  of  five  years  there  is  a  reduction  of  seven  mil- 
lions of  francs.  The>  salary  of  the  bishops  is  diminished, 
those  of  the  cathedral  canons  are  threatened  ;  the  burses  in 
the  seminaries  are  stricken  out  of  the  estimates ;  the  cathe- 
dral churches  are  refused  the  subsidies  necessary  for  the 
dignity  of  public  worship  and  the  repair  of  their  buildings  ; 
the  assistant  pastorships  are  suppressed  by  the  hundred. 
In  every  locality  where  the  municipal  officers  become  the 
tools  of  anti-religious  passions,  the  government  follow  in 
their  wake,  tolerating  or  sanctioning  the  most  unlawful 
usurpations. 

"  Thus  it  is  that  the  ministers  of  religion  are  excluded 
from  the  hospitals  which  depend  on  the  state  or  on  the 
municipality ;  the  funeral  of  a  celebrated  writer,  who  had 
refused  the  prayers  of  the  Church,  serves  as  a  pretext  for 
profaning  a  Christian  temple  bearing  the  name  of  the 
patron  saint  of  Paris  ;  and,  lastly,  the  parish  priests,  those 
lowly  servants  of  the  people  in  our  villages,  are  treated 
with  no  less  injustice.  The  poor  salary  which  represents 
the  sacred  debt  of  the  nation  toward  the  Church  ceases  to 


5  1 6  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

be  assured  to  the  priest  who  faithfully  discharges  his  obscure 
duties.  To  denounce  him  to  the  authorities — an  act  mostly 
inspired  by  hatred  or  by  private  interest — suffices  to  make 
him  lose  it.  He  is  visited  by  an  excessive  punishment 
which  no  law  authorizes,  and  which  is  preceded  by  no  trial. 

"  Five  years  have  sufficed  to  heap  up  all  these  violences. 
The  present  year  had  in  store  for  us  a  reserve  of  no  less  sor- 
rowful surprises.  While  people  are  expecting  the  repeal  of 
the  law  which  dispenses  the  clergy  from  military  service, 
we  are  made  to  follow  in  Parliament  the  debates  on  another 
law  taking  away  from  public  instruction  every  Christian 
characteristic. 

"  During  these  debates  we  heard  the  Minister  of  Public 
Worship  attacking,  in  his  speeches,  the  fundamental  doc- 
trines of  Christianity. 

"  Ten  years  ago  it  was  said,  '  Clericalism  is  the  national 
enemy,'  and  beneath  the  ambiguity  of  the  term  the  man 
who  used  it  purposely  veiled  the  intention  which  he  did 
not  dare  to  avow  openly.  At  this  moment  such  a  pre- 
caution is'  needless.  The  objects  of  direct  attack  are  the 
honor  paid  to  the  Blessed  Virgin  and  the  doctrine  of  Origi- 
nal Sin.  To  justify  the  perpetual  exclusion  of  teachers  be- 
longing to  communities  from  all  public  schools,  the  govern- 
ment declare  that  these  teachers,  precisely  because  they  are 
Catholics,  would  teach  doctrines  which  the  state  cannot 
tolerate  from  the  lips  of  masters  paid  by  it. 

"  In  very  truth,  Mr.  President,  I  cannot  help  asking  my- 
self what  we  are  come  to.  Has  the  Concordat  been  abro- 
gated, or  is  it  still  in  force?  It  is  easy  to  see  that  the 
Minister  of  Public  Worship  favors  the  separation  of  Church 
and  state,  but  that  he  dreads  the  consequences  for  our 
•existing  institutions,  and  wishes  to  prepare  public  opinion 
for  it.  Doubtless  it  is  because  he  wishes  the  better  to  pre- 
pare people  for  the  breaking  up  of  the  compact  that  he  be- 
gins openly  to  violate  its  clauses  and  its  spirit. 

"  The  seventeenth  article  of  the  Concordat  foresees  the 
case  in  which  the  First  Consul  might  have  a  non-Catholic 
successor,  and  stipulates  that  in  this  case  the  rights  and  the 


AN  APPEAL    TO  PRESIDENT  GREW. 


517 


prerogatives  mentioned  in  article  sixteen  and  the  nomination 
to  bishoprics  should  be  regulated  by  a  new  convention.  So,  in 
the  thought  of  the  two  parties  to  the  Concordat,  the  pre- 
rogatives granted  to  the  chief  of  the  French  government 
were  subordinated  to  the  condition  that  he  should  profess 
the  Catholic  faith.  And  now  here  is  a  minister  of  this 
government,  the  very  personage  who,  on  his  own  responsi- 
bility, exercises  the  prerogatives  granted  by  the  Concordat, 
and  he  makes  speeches  against  the  Catholic  belief !  If  he 
is  to  be  believed,  the  state  owes  it  to  itself  not  to  permit 
in  its  schools  the  teaching  of  the  dogmas  of  our  faith  ;  and 
yet  the  state  continues  to  nominate  our  bishops,  who  are 
the  guardians  of  that  faith  ! 

"  Mr.  President,  I  appeal  to  your  reason  and  your  im- 
partiality. Have  I,  in  what  I  have  just  said,  done  any- 
thing but  note  facts  well  known  and  official?  And  can 
any  one  dispute  the  conclusion  to  be  drawn  from  them,  and 
which  may  be  thus  formulated :  The  Catholic  clergy  have 
not  made  any  opposition  to  the  government,  which,  dur- 
ing these  last  six  years,  has  never  ceased  to  persecute  the 
clergy,  to  weaken  Christian  institutions,  and  to  prepare  for 
the  suppression  of  the  Christian  religion  itself? 

"  It  is  certain,  Mr.  President,  that  the  constitution 
which  frees  you  from  responsibility  leaves  you  the  full  en- 
joyment of  your  moral  influence.  Your  age,  your  great 
experience,  your  old  devotion  to  the  republican  cause,  the 
confidence  again  pledged  to  you  by  the  National  Assembly 
— all  this,  by  heightening  your  authority,  seems  to  ask  of 
you  to  interfere  in  the  difficult  situation  which  has  arisen. 
It  is  your  right  to  warn  those  who  share  with  you  the  bur- 
den of  power,  and  to  point  out  to  them  the  consequences 
of  their  dangerous  policy ;  they  could  not,  without  betray- 
ing levity  or  rashness,  help  yielding  to  your  wise  counsels 
and  having  a  regard  for  your  serious  observations. 

"  Allow,  then,  an  old  bishop,  who  has  seen,  during  his 
own  lifetime,  the  political  forms  of  his  country  changed 
seven  times  in  succession — allow  him  to  say  to  you  for  the 
last  time  what  his  long  experience  suggests. 


5  1 8  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

"  By  continuing  on  the  path  it  is  now  pursuing  the  re- 
public can  do  religion  great  harm  ;  but  kill  it  it  cannot. 
The  Church  has  known  greater  dangers  and  has  passed 
through  worse  storms,  and  yet  she  lives  in  the  heart  of 
France.  She  will  be  present  at  the  burial  of  those  who  flat- 
ter themselves  with  the  belief  that  they  will  annihilate  her. 

"  The  republic  has  received  no  promise  of  immortality 
either  from  God  or  from  history.  If  your  influence  could 
induce  it  to  respect  men's  consciences,  to  apply  the  Con- 
cordat honestly  both  in  its  letter  and  in  its  spirit,  you 
would  do  much  to  restore  public  peace  and  to  unite  men's 
minds.  If  you  fail  in  this  attempt,  or  if  you  think  it  can- 
not be  made,  then  it  is  not  the  clergy  nor  the  Church  that 
can  be  charged  with  laboring  to  ruin  the  political  establish- 
ment of  which  you  are  the  guardian  ;  you  know  that  rebel- 
lion is  not  one  of  the  weapons  that  we  use. 

"The  clergy  will  continue  to  endure  patiently;  they 
will  pray  for  their  enemies ;  they  will  beg  of  God  to  en- 
lighten these  and  to  inspire  them  with  more  equitable 
sentiments.  But  those  who  are  the  authors  of  this  impious 
war  shall  work  their  own  destruction  by  it,  and  great  ruins 
will  be  heaped  up  in  our  beloved  country  before  it  can  see 
once  more  happy  days. 

"  The  subversive  passions  which  give  many  signs  of 
their  near  awakening  will  create  in  your  path  dangers  far 
more  formidable  than  any  of  the  pretended  abuses  cast  up 
to  the  clergy.  And  God  grant  that  in  this  fearful  storm, 
where  the  appetites  let  loose  shall  find  no  moral  barrier  on 
their  road,  we  do  not  see  go  down  together  the  fortune  and 
even  the  independence  of  our  native  land  ! 

"  Arrived  at  the  extreme  limit  of  a  long  career,  I  re- 
solved, before  having  to  go  before  God  to  give  an  account 
of  my  administration,  to  remove  from  my  own  conscience 
any  share  of  responsibility  in  the  coming  disasters.  Still,  I 
cannot  close  this  letter  without  expressing  the  hope  that 
France  will  never  permit  herself  to  be  robbed  of  those  sa- 
cred beliefs  which  constituted  in  the  past  her  strength  and  her 
glory,  and  secured  to  her  the  foremost  rank  among  nations. 


5*9 


52O  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

"  I  confide,  Mr.  President,  these  weighty  reflections  to 
your  wisdom  and  your  lofty  intelligence,  and   beg  you  to 
accept  the  homage  of  my  respectful  consideration. 
"J.  HIPPOLYTE  CARDINAL  GUIBERT, 

"  Archbishop  of  Paris" 

Here  is  a  prophetic  voice  from  Paris  forecasting  the 
near  future  of  France.  It  is  a  description  of  the  imposing 
ceremony  in  the  cathedral  of  Notre  Dame  on  Easter  Sun- 
day morning,  April  25,  1886,  in  which  some  five  thousand 
men  received  together  Holy  Communion  : 

"  The  Communion  of  the  men,  as  it  is  called,  in  the 
church  of  Notre  Dame,  was  as  imposing  oh  Sunday  last 
as  in  the  best  years  of  the  past.  The  four  or  five  thou- 
sand faithful  men  who  follow  the  Lenten  lectures  and 
receive  Communion  on  Easter  Sunday  are  not  of  the 
class  who  are  influenced  in  the  profession  of  their  faith 
and  the  accomplishment  of  its  duties  by  the  fluctuations 
of  public  opinion.  Hence  the  nave  and  side-aisles  of  the 
cathedral  were  filled.  The  singing  of  the  Credo,  and  of  the 
psalm  In  Exitu*  and  of  the  hymns  drowned  the  mighty 
notes  of  the  great  organ.  Need  we  say  that  there  was 
deep  recollection  among  this  multitude,  and  that,  assembled 
there  for  the  most  part  long  before  the  hour  for  Mass,  these 
men  never  permitted  themselves  to  speak  of  politics  ? 

"  Nevertheless  a  feeling  of  uneasiness  betrayed  itself  in 
the  throng,  a  feeling  with  which  the  state  of  things  outside 
had  something  to  do,  and  which  was  also  observable  last 
year.  One  might  think  that  Father  Monsabr6  gave  an 
answer  to  this  secret  thought  of  every  man  there  when,  in 
the  farewell  address  after  Communion,  he  spoke  of  perse- 
cution and  the  priesthood,  and  foretold  the  dark  future  in 
store  for  a  people  without  priests !  What  a  parallel  was 
that  between  the  brave  and  generous  nation  whose  warlike 
epic  could  be  entitled  '  Gesta  Dei  per  Francos, '  f  and  that 
same  people  lowered,  degraded,  without  God  or  priests, 

*  Psalms  cxiii.,  cxiv. 

f  "  The  Doings  of  God  through  the  Franks." 


A    PROPHETIC   VOICE.  52! 

whom  the  heel  of  the  barbarian  would  come  to  crush  in 
the  mire  of  their  own  corruption !  .  .  . 

"  Everybody  felt  it ;  the  truth  of  these  forebodings  is 
all  too  certain,  and  this  degradation  will  come  sooner  than 
we  think,  if  France  continues  to  countenance  the  war — a 
war  as  disgraceful  to  the  French  name  as  it  is  impious  in  its 
nature — which  the  Revolution  is  waging  against  God  !  "  * 

*  Z'  Univers. 


CHAPTER  XXXII. 

"THE  CHURCH  FREE  IN  THE  FREE  KINGDOM  OF  ITALY" 
—  LEO  XIII.  AND  THE  SPOLIATION  OF  THE  PROPA- 
GANDA. 


EEO  XIII.  's  passionate  love  for  higher  studies  would 
not  permit  him  to  overlook  the  glorious  mission- 
ary school  of  the  Propaganda  —  that  Collegium  Urbanum,  so 
called  from  its  great-souled  founder,  Pope  Urban  VIII.,  to 
which  the  select  youth  of  all  countries  and  races  are  sent  to 
receive  gratuitously  the  highest  education,  and  from  which 
they  return  to  their  native  land  to  be  the  apostles  of  their 
fellow-countrymen  and  the  promoters  of  Christian  civiliza- 
tion. 

Never  since  Christianity  itself  began  to  gather  the  na- 
tions into  the  fold  of  Christ  was  any  institution  so  admi- 
rably devised  as  this  Urban  College  to  typify,  realize,  and 
foster  the  great  idea  of  the  brotherhood  of  all  men  in 
Christ,  and  to  propagate  this  great  doctrine  and  its  bene- 
fits among  every  tribe  of  mankind. 

Before  the  occupation  of  Rome  by  the  Piedmontese  in 
September,  1870,  it  was  the  custom  in  this  great  school  of 
practical  brotherly  love  to  hold  yearly,  on  the  Feast  of  the 
Epiphany  —  regarded  as  the  anniversary  of  the  conversion  of 
the  Gentiles  —  an  "  academy,"  in  which  the  students,  young 
men  of  every  race  and  tongue,  were  wont,  in  presence  of 
the  Sovereign  Pontiff,  his  court,  the  Sacred  College,  the 
diplomatic  corps,  and  all  that  was  most  distinguished  in 
Rome,  to  give  specimens  of  their  proficiency.  It  was  a 
rare  spectacle. 

As,  however,  Leo  XIII.  could  no  longer  go  to  the  Col- 
lege of  Propaganda,  as  in  the  days  when  Rome  was  the  free 

in 


AN  ANNUAL  ACADEMY  OF   THE  PROPAGANDA.     523 

city  of  the  entire  Christian  world,  he  resolved  that  the  an- 
nual academy  should  be  held  in  the  most  magnificent  apart- 
ment in  the  Vatican,  the  Consistorial  Hall. 

We  give  the  following  account  from  an  eye-witness  of 
the  proceedings  on  January  6,  1880: 

"  The  Consistorial  Hall  was  arranged  with  a  throne  at 
one  side,  .  .  .  and  with  seats  for  the  cardinals  and  ambas- 
sadors placed  in  a  circle,  with  rows  of  chairs  extending 
at  either  side  for  the  prelates  and  privileged  persons 
permitted  to  be  present.  Mustafa  and  the  gentlemen  of 
the  Sistine  choir  occupied  part  of  the  upper  end  of  the 
room,  and  sang  some  beautiful  pieces  of  music  with  exqui- 
site skill. 

"  Leo  XIII.  entered  the  hall  at  a  quarter-past  ten,  at- 
tended by  Monsignor  Cataldi,  prefect  of  Pontifical  cere- 
monies, his  major-domo  and  master  of  the  Camera,  his  pri- 
vate chamberlains,  Boccali  and  Castrocane,  the  Marquis 
Serlupi  and  Prince  Antici-Mattei,  and  several  cardinals. 
The  seats  for  the  corps  diplomatique  were  occupied  by  the 
ambassadors  or  ministers  of  France,  Spain,  Portugal,  Mon- 
aco, Bolivia,  and  other  states. 

"  The  proceedings  commenced  by  the  reading  in  Italian 
of  a  prolusion  by  the  Rev.  Michele  Camillieri,  of  Smyrna, 
and  then  followed  the  recitation  of  poetical  compositions 
in  forty-nine  different  languages,  including  Hebrew,  Chal- 
daic,  Coptic,  Arabic,  Turkish,  Kurd,  Cingalese,  Tartar,  Ar- 
menian, Persian,  Syriac,  Ethiopic,  and  Akka.  Twenty-one 
languages  of  Asia  and  Africa  were  spoken  in  the  first  part 
of  the  accademia  by  young  men  of  color,  ranging  from  the 
pale  yellow  of  natives  of  the  Lebanon  or  Mesopotamia  to 
the  sooty  black  of  the  Nubians  and  Central  Africans.  The 
recitations  were  interspersed  with  popular  songs  in  Chaldee, 
Arabic,  Kurd,  Cingalese,  Armenian,  and  Syriac. 

"The  second  part  comprised  recitations  and  songs  in 
twenty-eight  languages  of  Europe,  including  Greek,  Geor- 
gian, Keltic,  Bulgar,  and  Roumanian.  The  accademia  was 
closed  by  the  benediction  given  by  the  Holy  Father,  and 
at  half-past  twelve  P.M.  the  assemblage  broke  up.  To  this 


524  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

disputation  were  admitted  deputations  from  the  students 
of  the  ecclesiastical  colleges  in  Rome."  * 

Of  course  this  academy,  intended  to  represent  the  great 
family  of  all  nations  and  languages  belonging  to  Christ's 
fold,  does  not  give  any  idea  of  the  severe  course  of  sacred 
and  secular  studies  which  the  pupils  of  the  Propaganda 
have  to  follow  during  their  training  in  Rome.  But  the 
above  description  affords  the  reader  a  glance  at  the  truly 
Catholic  composition  of  the  school  itself,  and  hints  at  the 
large  and  practical  humanitarian  spirit  which  presided  at 
the  foundation  of  such  an  establishment  and  still  continues 
to  watch  over  and  direct  its  progress. 

This  is  not  the  place  to  speak  of  the  Propaganda  Library, 
nor  of  its  presses,  which  print  books  in  the  principal  lan- 
guages of  every  continent.  We  were  only  anxious  to  place 
before  the  general  reader's  eye  one  of  these  great  nurseries 
of  the  apostolic  spirit  which  have  contributed  immensely  to 
the  Christianizing  and  civilizing  so  many  barbarous  nations, 
and  toward  spreading  and  maintaining,  wherever  the  Eng- 
lish language  is  spoken,  the  Catholic  faith  in  its  purity  and 
integrity. 

Non-Catholics,  indeed,  are  not  expected  to  view  with 
sympathy  these  great  seminaries  for  Catholic  missionaries. 
But  Protestants  have  been  most  generous  in  their  praise  of 
the  Propaganda  and  its  dependent  colleges,  as  well  as  in 

*  Letter  in  the  Dublin  Freeman's  Journal,  dated  Rome,  April  18,  1880, 
quoted  in  the  "  Chair  of  Peter,"  p.  <  39. 

The  "ecclesiastical  colleges"  here  mentioned,  and  maintained  by  the 
Propaganda,  are  :  the  Germanic  College,  the  Teutonic  College,  the  English 
College,  the  Collegio  Pio-Inglese,  the  Irish  College  of  Santa  Agata,  the 
Irish  Franciscan  College  of  St.  Isidore,  the  Scotch  College,  the  Polish  Col- 
lege, the  Illyrian  College,  the  Collegio  Pio-Latino  for  Spanish  America, 
the  North  American  College  for  the  United  States,  the  Greco-Ruthene 
College  of  St.  Athanasius,  the  College  of  St.  Gregory,  the  College  of  St. 
Pancratius  for  the  Discalced  Carmelites,  the  College  of  St.  Peter  in  Mon- 
torio  for  the  Observantines,  that  of  San  Bartolomeo  on  the  Island  for 
the  same,  the  College  of  St.  Anthony  of  Padua  for  the  Minors-Conven- 
tual, the  College  of  Capuchins,  and  that  of  the  Armenians  founded  by 
Leo  XIII.  Add  to  these  a  college  in  course  of  foundation  for  the  Cana- 
dian confederacy. 


PROTESTANT  ADMIRATION  FOR  THE  PROPAGANDA.    525 

acknowledging  the  extraordinary  results  produced  by  the 
labors  of  an  administration  which  disposes  of  less  than  one- 
fifth  of  the  pecuniary  means  at  the  command  of  the  Bible 
and  missionary  societies  of  England  and  the  United  States. 

At  any  rate,  London  or  New  York  would  be  proud  to 
own  such  an  establishment  as  the  Urban  College,  although 
only  one  of  the  colleges  directed  by  the  Congregation  de 
Propaganda  Fide.  For  the  very  assemblage  of  these  young 
students,  representing  all  the  tribes  of  earth,  is  a  something 
which  appeals  to  our  Christian  affections  and  our  brotherly 
sympathy  for  all  the  descendants  of  Adam. 

One  would  also  think  that  the  Italian  Revolutionists, 
who  are  so  loud  in  prating  about  progress,  culture,  civiliza- 
tion, humanity,  and  universal  brotherhood,  would  feel  some 
pride  in  possessing  in  the  city  of  the  Popes  such  a  cosmo- 
politan institution  as  the  Propaganda  with  its  glorious 
schools. 

It  would  seem  a  liberal,  a  large-minded,  and  a  wise  policy 
in  the  men  who  wish  to  restore  to  Rome  and  to  Italy  some- 
thing of  the  moral,  if  not  of  the  political,  supremacy  of 
former  ages,  to  encourage  and  foster  this  missionary  spirit 
and  the  institutions  which  embody  it,  because  every  one  of 
these  sons  of  Asia,  Africa,  America,  Oceanica,  and  Austra- 
lia carries  with  him  to  his  native  land  the  memory  and 
the  name  of  Italy  and  of  Rome. 

If  anti-Christian  hate  did  not  blind  the  present  rulers  of 
Rome  and  the  Peninsula  to  the  incomparable  means  of  in- 
fluencing the  nations  of  the  earth  which  they  have  in  the 
Papacy  left  sovereign,  independent,  and  free  as  an  integral 
portion  of  an  Italian  confederacy!  If  they  could  be  made 
to  understand  that  Italy  would  be  far  more  powerful,  more 
united,  more  respected,  more  secure  against  all  foreign 
aggression  and  all  intestine  divisions  if  the  Papacy  were 
left,  as  it  was  hitherto,  to  represent  to  the  world  the  divine 
influence  of  Christian  truth  and  morality,  and  if  the  Pope 
were  allowed  to  be  the  teacher  of  all  mankind  and  the  su- 
preme director  of  consciences,  without  being  trammelled  by 
the  action  or  authority  of  any  rival  secular  power ! 


526  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

What  was  happening  in  1880  under  Leo  XIII.,  and 
what  had  happened  under  Pius  IX.,  to  mar  the  labors  of 
the  Propaganda  and  to  interfere  with  the  prosperity  of  the 
great  missionary  schools  ? 

In  1874,  just  when  all  these  youths  of  the  Urban  Col- 
lege were  working  hard  to  undergo  creditably  their  severe 
yearly  examinations,  the  Giunta  Liquidatrice,  a  board  es- 
tablished by  the  new  Italian  government  to  carry  out  the 
laws  sequestrating  all  ecclesiastical  property  and  securing 
the  proceeds  of  their  sale  to  the  state,  seized  upon  the 
Villa  Montalto  at  Tusculum,  the  country-house  of  the 
Urban  College,  and  put  it  up  for  public  auction. 

It  was  a  terrible  disappointment  to  these  young  men, 
who  could  not  return  to  their  native  homes  to  spend  the 
yearly  vacation,  and  who  had  always  enjoyed  their  well- 
earned  repose  among  the  cool  and  breezy  solitudes  of  the 
Roman  hills,  instead  of  being  cooped  up  within  the  sultry, 
sunburned  circuit  of  Rome  itself. 

One  would  think  that,  even  if  the  right  of  the  govern- 
ment to  seize  and  sell  the  villa  be  conceded,  consideration 
for  these  foreign  youths,  who  could  bring  back  home  with 
them  either  hatred  of  the  oppressors  of  religion  and  the 
Papacy  or  admiration  for  a  large  and  enlightened  apprecia- 
tion of  Catholicism  and  its  power  in  the  world,  should  have 
made  the  Giunta  Liquidatrice  pause  or  have  induced  the 
government  to  interfere. 

The  Propaganda  were  taken  by  surprise,  for  they  did 
not  imagine  that  the  new  laws  of  suppression  and  seques- 
tration were  meant  for  them,  and  the  king,  Victor  Em- 
manuel, had  solemnly  declared  that  the  Propaganda  and  its 
property  were  safe  from  the  operation  of  these  laws. 

On  August  6,  1874,  the  Propaganda  brought  the  matter 
before  the  Roman  courts  of  justice  to  test  the  applicability 
of  the  law  to  their  property,  while  the  Sovereign  Pontiff 
appealed  to  the  European  powers  against  this  invasion  of 
his  spiritual  mission  in  favor  of  the  heathen.  But  the 
Giunta,  secure  of  the  support  of  the  government,  and  well 
knowing  that  the  law-courts  would  be  made  to  sanction  the 


SEIZURE  AND  SALE  OF  PROPAGANDA  PROPERTY.    527 

confiscation,  sold  out  the  Villa  Montalto  without  waiting 
for  the  issue  of  the  suit. 

The  Congregation  of  Propaganda,  knowing  that  it  was 
useless  to  contend  for  justice  when  this  act  of  spoliation 
was  accomplished,  did  not  push  their  suit.  But  the  Giunta, 
sure  of  the  decision  of  the  courts,  demanded  that  it  should 
be  proceeded  with.  The  king,  however,  interfered,  not  to 
cancel  the  sale  and  to  repair  the  wrong,  but  simply  to  stop 
the  suit.  But  the  government  and  their  subordinates,  who, 
in  the  interest  of  the  Revolution,  were  loud  in  honoring 
the  king  as  a  hero,  a  great  man,  "the  father  of  his  country," 
made  very  little  of  his  wishes  or  his  orders  in  practice.  He 
was  only  a  tool,  which  could  be  laid  aside  or  used  as  the 
occasion  required. 

Things  were  allowed  to  remain  quiet  till  after  his  death. 
But  on  June  12,  1881,  Signer  Morena,  a  royal  commissary, 
set  up  to  be  sold  at  public  auction  a  number  of  farms  in 
the  country  and  of  city  lots  belonging  to  the  Propaganda. 
Both  the  Propaganda  and  the  commissary  applied  to  the 
civil  courts  in  Rome,  and  on  July  5  a  decision  was  given 
against  the  former  and  condemning  the  Congregation  to  pay 
three-fourths  of  the  expense.  It  was  a  hard  judgment. 

The  Propaganda  appealed  on  September  22.  This  time 
the  court  would  not  even  allow  the  necessary  delay  to  obtain 
evidence,  and  affirmed  the  sentence  of  the  inferior  court,  be- 
sides condemning  the  Propaganda  to  pay  all  the  expenses. 

It  is  not  to  be  thought  that  public  opinion  in  Italy  was 
so  utterly  perverted,  or  that  Italian  lawyers  had  so  entirely 
lost  all  sense  of  justice  and  all  honesty  and  independence 
in  interpreting  the  laws,  as  not  to  utter  any  remonstrance 
against  so  glaring  an  iniquity.  Many  generous  protests 
were  heard,  but  they  were  of  little  avail. 

The  Propaganda  this  time  had  recourse  to  the  Supreme 
Court,  which  invalidated  the  last  sentence  and  sent  the  case 
to  be  tried  anew  before  the  Court  of  Ancona.  Here  the 
Congregation  was  again  condemned ;  and  on  December  14, 
1 88 1,  the  case  was  laid  before  the  full  bench  of  the  Court  of 
Cassation,  the  court  of  last  appeal  in  the  kingdom. 


528  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

The  court,  under  what  pression  it  were  useless  to  inquire, 
did  not  hesitate  to  stultify  and  contradict  themselves.  Four 
of  the  same  judges  who  on  May  31,  1881,  declared  that  the 
Sacred  Congregation  de  Propaganda  Fide  was  an  institu- 
tion apart  and  by  itself,  sui  generis,  and  unlike  any  other, 
and  "  inspired  by  a  great  humanitarian  conception,"  and 
that  all  the  preceding  laws  had,  ex proposito,  "  of  set  purpose 
omitted  "  to  comprise  its  property  within  the  scope  of  se- 
questration or  conversion,  subscribed  the  second  contradic- 
tory sentence  of  January  29,  1884,  without  protestation,  or 
giving  any  sign  that  they  differed  from  the  majority  of  the 
court.  The  names  of  the  other  four  are  missing  among  the 
signatures  to  the  second  sentence. 

The  best  jurists  in  Italy  openly  affirmed  that  instead  of 
interpreting  in  a  wide  and  liberal  sense  the  dubious  terms  of 
the  law  in  a  matter  of  confiscation  and  sequestration,  the 
judges  in  the  second  decision  had  so  stretched  their  inter- 
pretation, instead  of  restricting  it,  as  to  include  every  es- 
tablishment and  office  connected  with  the  Papacy,  without 
even  excepting  the  Pope  himself  and  his  household.  It  was 
annulling  in  advance  the  Law  of  Guarantees. 

And  what  did  Leo  XIII.  say  and  do  in  this  emergency? 
On  the  2d  of  March,  the  anniversary  of  his  coronation,  in 
answer  to  the  address  of  the  College  of  Cardinals,  presented 
by  Cardinal  di  Pietro,  the  Holy  Father  said : 

"  The  wishes  which  the  Sacred  College  expresses  on  this 
day,  doubly  memorable  for  us,  and  the  prayers  it  offers  to 
Heaven  for  us,  move  our  heart  in  a  special  manner.  .  .  . 
The  Sacred  College,  which  shares  with  us  the  care  of  gov- 
erning the  Church,  knows  best  the  need  we  have  both  of 
divine  and  of  human  aid  to  strengthen  and  sustain  our 
weakness.  The  deep  fear  which  overwhelmed  our  souls 
when,  without  any  merit  of  ours,  we  were  called  to  the 
Sovereign  Pontificate,  again  takes  forcible  possession  of  us 
in  this  sixth  year,  which  closes  now  after  having  taken 
away  from  your  midst  some  of  your  illustrious  members 
most  dear  to  us,  and  after  having  dealt  to  the  Church  new 
blows. 


THE   SOVEREIGN  PONTIFF  PROTESTS.  529 

"  For  she  sees  her  divine  mission  beset  on  every  side  by 
difficulties  of  all  sorts  and  ever  increasing  in  magnitude. 
More  to  be  deplored  than  all  the  others  are  attacks  made 
on  her  here  in  Rome,  for  they  strike  her  in  the  very  centre 
of  her  life,  and  are  directed  toward  obstructing  the  action 
of  her  Supreme  Head. 

"  Bitter  indeed  to  us  it  was  to  see  a  harsh  judgment  fall 
on  an  institution  which  is  the  honor  of  the  Church,  of  the 
Roman  Pontificate,  and  of  Italy  itself.  We  mean  the  Pro- 
paganda. It  is  easy  to  see  how  this  sentence  decreases  the 
value  of  its  patrimony,  both  because  its  capital  is  thereby 
rendered  subject  to  the  changes  and  instability  of  a  public 
fund,  and  because  it  is  deprived  of  the  power  of  disposing 
of  any  portion  of  its  capital,  even  to  meet  cases  of  urgent 
necessity  or  to  augment  them  by  new  pious  bequests,  with- 
out the  interference  of  a  power  foreign  to  it. 

"  But,  if  we  rise  to  loftier  considerations,  we  discern 
what  the  Propaganda  really  is — an  institution  of  an  order 
altogether  beyond  the  common  level,  and  by  its  nature  in- 
dependent of  all  lay  authority.  For  it  was  founded  by  the 
Roman  Pontiffs  in  virtue  of  the  supreme  apostolic  ministry 
with  which  they  are  invested,  and  it  is  directly  ordered  for 
the  purpose  of  propagating  and  preserving  the  faith  in  the 
various  parts  of  our 'globe,  and  for  fulfilling  the  sublime 
mission  of  the  Church  to  save  the  world. 

"  For  this  end  the  Roman  Pontiffs  transferred  to  the 
Propaganda  such  an  important  part  of  their  sublime  power; 
it  is  by  its  means  that  they  cause  the  blessings  of  redemp- 
tion to  reach  the  most  distant  nations.  Innumerable  re- 
gions of  Africa,  of  Asia,  of  both  North  and  South  America,, 
of  Oceania,  and  of  Europe  itself,  are  indebted  to  this  blessed, 
institution  for  the  light  of  the  Gospel  and  for  the  true  civ- 
ilization which  the  Gospel  imparts.  ) 

"  And  it  is  precisely  to  enable  the  Propaganda  to  corre- 
spond with  their  lofty  purpose  that  the  Popes  themselves 
bestowed  on  it  ample  property  and  abundant  revenues,  ex- 
citing by  their  example  and  their  exhortations  the  entire 
Catholic  world  to  do  the  same. 


53O  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

"  It  is  no  wonder,  therefore,  that  men  who  were  no 
friends  of  the  Catholic  Church  have  always  bestowed  un- 
bounded praise  on  this  institution.  It  is  no  wonder  that  its 
property  was  spared  even  by  the  Imperial  French  govern- 
ment, and  that  the  conqueror,  who  then  seemed  the  master 
of  Europe,  had  only  great  praise  and  sure  protection  for  it. 
Such  being,  therefore,  the  character  of  this  Papal  institu- 
tion, any  act  which  aims  at  subjecting  it  in  any  way  what- 
ever to  a  power  external  to  it,  and  to  place  obstacles  in  the 
way  of  its  proper  action,  is  a  crime  against  the  liberty  of 
the  Head  of  the  Church  in  the  exercise  of  his  spiritual  au- 
thority, in  the  discharge  of  his  apostolic  ministry. 

"  For  these  reasons  of  the  highest  order  we  feel  it  to 
be  our  duty  to  lift  up  our  voice  and  to  denounce  to  the  Ca- 
tholics of  all  nations,  who  have  so  many  reasons  to  be  in- 
terested therein,  the  new  outrage  committed  against  the 
Apostolic  See. 

"  Meanwhile  we  shall  endeavor,  in  the  best  way  we  can, 
to  provide  for  the  administrative  necessities  of  this  vast  and 
magnificent  institution.  But  in  proportion  as  difficulties  in- 
crease around  us  and  as  our  condition  becomes  more  intole- 
rable, the  more  do  we  expect  the  aid  of  the  Sacred  College, 
the  more  abundantly  do  we  claim  from  the  faithful  all  over 
the  world  the  help  of  their  prayers,  of  their  co-operation,  of 
their  generosity. 

"  We  thereby  hope,  my  Lord  Cardinal,  that  the  wishes 
you  have  expressed  may  be  in  this  way  largely  fulfilled ; 
that,  in  spite  of  all  the  efforts  of  the  enemy,  the  Apostolic 
See  may  never  lack  the  means  to  .spread  the  Gospel  and  to 
accomplish  the  work  of  the  apostleship." 

While  the  whole  Catholic  world  was  moved  by  strong 
indignation  against  the  oppressors  of  the  Holy  See,  and 
voices  denouncing  the  thinly  disguised  robbery  of  the  most 
sacred  institution  on  earth  reached  Italy  from  every  shore, 
Cardinal  Simeoni,  the  venerable  Prefect  of  the  Propaganda, 
was,  under  the  Pope's  direction,  taking  steps  to  prevent  the 
funds  sent  to  the  Propaganda  by  the  pious  zeal  of  Catholic 
peoples  from  coming  to  Rome.  The  first  act  of  spoliation 


A    SECOND  PROTEST.  531 

diminished  by  fully  one-third  the  revenues  in  Italy  of  the 
great  institution.  No  one  could  foresee  the  day  when  the 
institution  itself  would  be  suppressed,  or  its  revenues  so 
crippled  and  their  management  so  hampered  as  to  render 
them  unavailable. 

A  consistory  was  held  on  March  24,  and,  encouraged  by 
the  general  reprobation  with  which  the  decision  of  the  Court 
of  Cassation  and  the  conduct  and  speeches  of  Signer  Man- 
cini,  the  Minister  of  Foreign  Affairs,  had  met  with  in  Eu, 
rope  as  well  as  in  America,  the  Holy  Father  did  not  hesi- 
tate to  stigmatize  the  act  of  spoliation  and  the  curtailment 
of  his  own  spiritual  freedom  in  words  to  which  people  listen- 
ed with  respect  and  sympathy : 

'*  When  the  storms  of  rebellion,  whose  fierce  attacks 
were  directed  against  the  civil  principality  of  the  Roman 
Pontiffs  and  for  the  conquest  of  this  city,  had  achieved  its 
purpose,  both  our  predecessor,  Pius  IX.,  and  ourselves 
raised  our  voices  and  used  our  utmost  exertions  to  protect 
and  to  vindicate  the  rights  of  the  Apostolic  See,  in  accord- 
ance with  the  strict  obligations  of  our  office.  With  the 
same  firmness  of  purpose,  as  the  Revolution  went  on  its 
course,  every  time  we  saw  injustice  committed  we  took  on 
ourselves  to  protect  truth  and  justice  violated ;  more  espe- 
cially have  we,  in  so  far  as  our  firmly  resisting  could  do  so, 
done  our  best  to  beat  off  the  violence  so  long  done  to  us. 

"  Nevertheless,  by  a  mysterious  permission  of  God,  that 
terrible  storm  had  but  a  brief  interval  of  subsidence.  We 
scarcely  need  say  it,  especially  to  you,  Venerable  Brothers, 
who  have  the  daily  experience  of  what  we  describe.  Our 
enemies  lose  not  a  moment,  in  the  carrying  out  of  their  own 
plans,  to  establish  themselves  here  on  a  firm  footing,  arrang- 
ing and  disposing  all  things  in  such  a  manner  as  to  make 
people  think  that  they  have  taken  possession  of  Rome  by 
the  best  of  rights  and  that  they  mean  to  hold  it  for  ever. 
To  this  purpose  is  directed  their  well-weighed  and  clever 
manner  of  proceeding;  a  succession  of  incidents  brought 
about  by  a  well-calculated  series  of  causes ;  the  care  which 
they  take  to  gain  at  home  the  good  will  of  the  people,  and 


532  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

to  obtain  friends  and  allies  abroad — in  a  word,  every  artifice 
is  used  which  can  serve  to  enable  them  to  obtain  and  to 
keep  a  firm  grasp  of  their  power. 

"  The  more,  therefore,  these  men  labor  to  ruin  the  in- 
terests of  the  Church  and  the  Papacy,  the  more  are  we 
bound  to  protect  them ;  and,  for  this  reason,  in  this  solemn 
assemblage  we  to-day  once  more  reprove  and  condemn 
everything  that  has  been  done  to  the  injury  of  the  Apos- 
tolic See,  and  we  declare,  moreover,  that  we  are  resolved  to 
see  all  its  rights  preserved  undiminished  to  all  future  time. 
Nor  in  this  are  we  influenced  by  the  ambition  to  reign  or 
the  desire  of  earthly  possessions — motives  which  some  per- 
sons attribute  to  us  with  equal  silliness  and  impudence. 
We  are  only  moved  by  the  consciousness  of  our  duty,  by 
respect  for  our  oath,  by  the  examples  of  our  predecessors, 
among  whom  were  men  illustrious  for  their  courage  and 
sanctity,  who  have  displayed,  when  it  was  needful,  consum- 
mate fortitude  and  firmness  in  protecting  their  temporal 
power. 

"  In  this  civil  sovereignty,  apart  from  the  legitimacy  of 
its  origin  and  the  various  glorious  titles  on  which  it  was 
held,  there  is  a  special  and  sacred  form  and  character,  pro- 
per to  itself  and  to  be  found  in  no  other  state,  arising  from 
the  fact  that  it  is  the  secure  and  permanent  safeguard  of 
the  Pontiff's  liberty  in  the  exercise  of  his  august  office. 
Everybody  knows  that  no  Pontiff  ever  lost  his  civil  sove- 
reignty without  at  the  same  time  incurring  some  loss  of  his 
freedom.  This  is  evident  in  our  own  person  at  the  present 
time,  subjected  as  we  are  to  the  various  uncertain  chances 
of  an  alien  power.  The  last  grievous  case  in  point  is  that 
relating  to  the  property  of  the  Propaganda.  The  affair  was 
intimately  connected  with  the  apostolic  office  of  the  Sove- 
reign Pontiff,  and  one  so  much  more  important  than  mere 
human  matters  as  is  the  propagation  of  the  divine  wisdom 
and  the  eternal  salvation  of  mankind.  And  yet  the  prevail- 
ing violence  of  the  present  time  did  not  spare  that  noble  in- 
stitution, which  had  its  origin  in  the  munificence  of  the 
Popes  and  was  fostered  by  the  generosity  of  the  Christian 


DIPLOMATIC  NOTE    TO    THE   CATHOLIC  POWERS.     533 

nations.  And  so  severe  was  the  blow  dealt  it  that  we  were 
constrained  to  adopt  new  measures  for  its  safety  in  the 
future. 

"  These  things  are  bitter  enough.  But  we  feel  that 
there  are  more  bitter  still  in  store  for  us,  and  we  are  ready 
for  them.  We  know  that  our  enemies  have  resolved  so  to 
heap  wrong  upon  wrong  against  the  Roman  Pontificate  as 
to  drive  the  Pope  to  extremity,  if  they  can.  It  is  a  hateful 
and  insane  project.  If  it  be,  on  the  one  hand,  quite  con- 
genial to  the  spirit  of  those  who  only  labor  to  serve  the 
wicked  purpose  of  the  secret  societies,  and  who  are  anxious 
to  place  the  Church  helpless  beneath  the  feet  of  the  state, 
such  a  design,  on  the  other  hand,  must  be  abhorrent  to  all 
who  truly  love  their  country,  who  look  upon  the  Papacy, 
its  power,  and  its  greatness,  not  with  the  eyes  of  preju- 
dice, but  as  it  is  in  itself ;  who  consider  well  the  benefits 
which  it  has  bestowed  not  only  on  all  nations,  but  especi- 
ally on  Italians,  and  which  it  is  capable  of  bestowing  in  the 
future." 

Leo  XIII.  was  not  satisfied  with  this  indirect  appeal*  to 
public  opinion.  He  had,  soon  after  the  sentence  of  the 
Court  of  Cassation  had  been  delivered,  prepared  a  masterly 
exposition  of  the  whole  case  to  be  sent  by  the  Cardinal 
Secretary  of  State  to  all  the  nuncios  and  diplomatic  agents 
of  the  Holy  See.  It  is  dated  February  10,  1884,  and  was, 
therefore,  anterior  to  the  two  addresses  just  quoted.  This 
document  found  its  way  into  the  public  press  in  both  hemi- 
spheres, and  was  received  with  marked  favor  even  by  the 
great  non-Catholic  daily  journals.  It  certainly  contributed 
very  much  to  turn  public  opinion  against  the  stupid  and 
blundering  policy  of  the  Italian  government. 

The  Propaganda,  the  Pope  says  through  his  Secretary 
of  State,  as  is  evident  from  the  authentic  documents  which 
recite  the  facts  of  its  foundation,  must  be  "  considered  as  an 
emanation  of  the  supreme  apostolic  office  of  the  Papacy ;  it 
must,  therefore,  in  its  sphere  of  action,  be  considered  as  an 
eminently  cosmopolitan  institution ;  its  purpose  is  to  propa- 
gate the  faith — that  is,  the  truth;  the  means  generously 


534  UFE  OF  LEO  xiu, 

bestowed  upon  it  should  be  employed,  in  accordance  with 
the  pious  will  of  the  donors,  in  carrying  out  such  a  design. 
Hence  it  is  that  the  patrimony  of  the  Propaganda  is  the 
property  of  the  entire  Catholic  family. 

"  Such  considerations  easily  prove  that  the  Propaganda 
represents  the  most  splendid  and  efficient  creation  of  the 
Papacy  for  the  purpose  of  preparing  ready  for  use  and  em- 
ploying the  principal  means  adapted  to  the  fulfilment  of  the 
divine  mission  given  it  to  propagate  the  faith  and  civiliza- 
tion among  all  nations. 

"  As  to  the  manner  in  which  the  Propaganda  has  an- 
swered to  the  purpose  of  its  founders,  we  have  proof  of  it 
in  the  annals  of  the  missions  it  has  directed,  which  record 
the  prodigies  wrought  by  the  Catholic  apostolate  from 
Thibet  to  Scandinavia,  from  Iceland  to  China,  and  particu- 
larly in  the  East  and  West  Indies. 

"  Writers,  even  non-Catholic  writers,  have  acknowledged 
that  the  assimilating  action  issuing  from  that  centre  and 
radiating  to  the  remotest  countries  has  everywhere  been 
productive  of  the  peaceful  conquests  of  religion  and  of 
civilization. 

"  And  here,  the  better  to  point  out  the  universal  charac- 
ter of  the  Propaganda,  we  should  remark  that  the  Popes 
labored  through  that  institution  for  the  conversion  of  idola- 
ters, and  also  to  revive  the  faith  in  those  Christian  countries 
which  the  Photian  schism  and  heresy  had  devastated.  .  .  . 

"  On  this  point  it  may  suffice  to  recall  the  generous  en- 
dowment of  Cardinal  Antonio  Barberini,  who  founded  in 
the  Propaganda  twelve  scholarships  for  Georgians,  Persians, 
Melchites,  and  Copts,  seven  for  Ethiopians,  and  six  fer  In- 
dians and  Armenians. 

"  Now,  this  is  the  institution  which,  by  its  origin,  its 
character,  its  action,  its  property,  and  its  history,  shows  it- 
self plainly  to  be  essentially  one  which  is  oecumenical  and 
cosmopolitan,  that  they  wish  to  subject  to  the  private  laws  of 
one  government,  to  the  judgment  of  a  local  tribunal  which, 
by  declaring  it  incapable  of  juridically  possessing  property, 
strips  it  of  the  property  which  it  has  ! 


A    TOTAL  DENIAL    OF   THE   COMMONEST  RIGHTS.    535 

"  It  was  not  enough  to  compel  the  Propaganda  to  con- 
tinue a  long  suit  before  the  law-courts  and  to  undergo  the 
heavy  charges  of  a  costly  trial.  It  was  not  deemed  enough 
to  have  forced  it  to  pay  enormous  taxes,  which  absorb  near- 
ly the  fifth  part  of  its  yearly  income,  thereby  withdrawn 
from  its  proper  destination.  The  kind  offices  of  high  per- 
sonages were  of  no  avail  ;  of  no  avail  were  the  efforts  to 
render  its  juridical  and  economical  position  less  intolera- 
ble. No  account  was  taken  of  the  irrefutable  arguments 
alleged  in  the  judicial  decisions  favorable  to  it,  ...  and 
which  deserved  the  approbation  of  all  honorable  men  ;  even 
the  will  formally  expressed  of  an  august  personage  was  not 
respected  after  his  death  !  It  might,  in  a  way,  be  said  that 
an  Occult  Force  had  dictated  the  spoliation  of  the  Propa- 
ganda, precisely  because  it  is  the  most  splendid  embodiment 
of  the  Papacy  ;  and  that  before  the  prepotency  of  that  Oc- 
cult Force  all  the  arguments  founded  on  right  and  propriety 
lost  all  their  relevancy,  all  the  remonstrances  had  to  give 
way. 

"  To  weaken  the  force  of  the  foregoing  considerations, 
and  to  do  away  with  the  responsibility  of  such  an  odious 
spoliation,  they  wish  us  to  believe  that  the  Propaganda  will 
in  nowise  be  injured  by  the  application  of  the  law  regard- 
f  ing  the  conversion  of  its  immovable  property,  inasmuch  as 
the  revenues  of  the  alienated  property  are  to  be  set  against 
an  equal  value  of  the  state  funds  inscribed  in  its  favor, 
and  the  Propaganda,  besides,  being  left  free  to  increase  in 
the  future  its  patrimony  by  accepting  new  bequests. 

"  Now,  to  upset  this  specious  reasoning  it  is  sufficient 
to  remark  that  by  taking  away  from  the  Propaganda  the 
right  to  hold  property,  its  legal  status  was  rendered  worse 
than  that  of  the  lowliest  citizen.  For  if  the  right  to  hold 
property  is  a  guarantee  of  the  independence  and  respecta- 
bility of  all  persons  living  together  in  any  civil  community, 
what  an  outrage  is  put  upon  the  Propaganda  by  declaring 
it  incapable  of  possessing,  and  by  rendering  it  dependent  on 
another  institution,  which  pays  it,  as  to  a  person  who  has 
only  the  use  of  his  property,  as  it  were  a  half-yearly  alms ' 


536  LIFE  OF  LEO  XII I. 

"  But,  aside  from  these  reflections  of  the  moral  order,  it 
is  contrary  to  the  truth  to  say  that  the  financial  condition  of 
the  Propaganda  is  not  made  worse  by  the  law  of  conversion. 

"  In  what  a  plight  would  the  Propaganda  be  if  the  value 
of  the  state  funds  fell  far  below  par,  if  the  government  had 
to  suspend  payment,  as  it  has  happened  in  other  countries  ! 
Who  could  guarantee  that  the  yearly  income  should  be  paid 
punctually  and  in  its  entirety  in  the  event  of  a  financial 
crisis,  of  warlike  revolutions,  of  sinister  accidents  ?  Have 
people  forgotten  that  for  the  sole  reason  of  reprisals  they 
suspended  for  many  years  the  payment  of  ecclesiastical 
pensions  which  burdened  the  properties  sequestrated  by 
the  Piedmontese  government  ? 

"  Moreover,  it  is  of  the  deepest  importance  to  bear  in 
mind  that  the  Propaganda,  by  the  special  conditions  in 
which  it  is  placed,  and  to  face  the  extraordinary  demands 
of  its  oecumenical  action,  is  not  unfrequently  obliged  to  dis- 
pose of  a  portion  even  of  its  capital  when  its  ordinary  reve- 
nue is  insufficient  for  its  need.  Thus  did  it  happen  when 
it  became  imperative,  during  the  late  famines,  to  come  to 
the  help  of  the  Christians  of  China  and  Tonquin,  and  when 
great  sums  of  money  were  required  by  the  perilous  condi- 
tion of  the  vicariate  of  Constantinople. 

"  Besides  all  this,  the  ever-increasing  developments  of 
Catholicism  among  the  unbelievers,  and  the  increase  as 
well  of  the  facilities  of  communication,  require  the  estab- 
lishment of  new  missionary  centres,  and  with  these  of  semi- 
naries, colleges,  universities,  apostolic  prefectures  and  vica- 
riates,  with  regard  to  which  it  will. suffice  to  recall  the  fact 
that  during  the  glorious  Pontificate  of  Leo  XIII.  there  have 
been  erected  eighteen  new  apostolic  vicariates. 

"  Finally,  it  should  be  remembered  that  in  the  institu- 
tion called  the  Propaganda  we  have  not  only  to  consider 
the  chief  centre  of  the  Catholic  missions,  but,  moreover,  a 
first-class  educational  and  scientific  establishment,  in  which 
is  a  flourishing  college  with  upwards  of  one  hundred  stu- 
dents, with  the  corresponding  chairs  of  literature,  of  phi- 
losophy, of  theology  and  linguistics,  and  which  possesses 


APPEAL    TO    THE  CATHOLIC  POWERS.  537 

a  very  rich  library,  a  very  precious  museum,  and  a  polyglot 
printing-office." 

The  Secretary  of  State  then  goes  on  to  refute  victorious- 
ly the  futile  assertions  of  the  government  officials  regarding 
the  security  afforded  for  the  collection  of  the  full  rental  and 
its  increase  by  new  legacies,  etc.  He  then  concludes  his 
eloquent  arraignment  of  the  spoliators  : 

"  You  will  avail  yourself  of  the  preceding  considerations 
to  draw  the  attention  of  the  Minister  of  Foreign  Affairs  to 
the  special  gravity  of  this  last  invasion  of  the  rights  of  the 
Holy  See,  of  the  exercise  of  the  Pontifical  power,  of  the 
free  use  of  the  necessary  means  for  propagating  the  faith. 
From  these  violations  you  will  draw  a  new  argument  for 
making  him  understand  the  manifold  outrages  and  vexa- 
tions which  daily  render  more  painful  and  alarming  the 
situation  of  the  Supreme  Head  of  the  Church.  If  reasons 
of  the  highest  order  and  influence  have  been  unavailing  to 
prevent  a  sentence  as  insulting  as  it  is  injurious  to  the  Pa- 
pacy, and  regarded  as  supremely  impolitic  by  the  most  en- 
lightened men  of  all  parties,  it  is  but  too  much  to  be  feared 
that  the  boldness  and  the  plans  of  the  Revolutionists  shall 
become  the  ruling  power  and  reduce  the  Sovereign  Pontiff 
to  the  greatest  straits. 

"  We  have  meanwhile  confidence  that  the  government 
to  which  you  are  accredited  will  take  an  efficient  interest  in 
favor  of  an  institution  which  is  the  chief  glory  of  the  Pa- 
pacy and  of  the  Catholic  world,  and  that  they  will  seriously 
take  into  consideration  whether  it  can  be  any  longer  tole- 
rated that  the  Sovereign  Pontiff  should  be  subjected  to 
such  spoliations  and  violences,  which  render  it  for  him  a 
matter  of  extreme  difficulty,  if  not  of  impossibility,  to  fulfil 
his  spiritual  mission." 

Outside  of  Italy  the  leading  organs  in  the  public  press 
stigmatized  this  act  of  the  Roman  government  and  its 
Supreme  Court  as  an  unjustifiable  act  of  spoliation.  The 
London  Times  said  it  was  simply  and  purely  an  act  of  con- 
fiscation, quoting  as  an  instance  of  the  working  of  the  Italian 
law  of  "  conversion  "  an  episcopal  see  whose  yearly  revenue 


538  LIFE  OF  LEO  XI I L 

was  60,000  francs  before  the  government  took  possession  of 
it,  and  which  the  process  of  "  converting  "  brought  down 
to  18,000  francs.  This  loss  really  has  already  befallen  the 
revenues  of  the  Propaganda. 

In  France  Le  Journal  <ics  Dcbats  repeated  the  well-known 
formula  that  this  "  conversion  "  paralyzed  tkc  right  arm  of 
the  Papacy. 

In  Germany  and  in  the  United  States  the  great  daily 
papers  energetically  protested  against  an  act  which  de- 
stroyed a  great  humanitarian  and  international  institution. 
U  Indtpcndance  Beige,  though  unfavorable  to  the  Church, 
said  that  every  state  should  try  to  save  from  "  conversion  " 
the  college  or  property  belonging  to  its  own  subjects.  This 
was  done  by  the  United  States. 


CHAPTER  XXXIII. 

LEO   XIII.   AND    SPAIN — HIS   MEDIATION. 

EFORE  giving  a  history  of  the  mediation  accepted 
by  Leo  XIII.  between  Germany  and  Spain  in  rela- 
tion to  the  possession  of  the  Carolinas  Islands  it  will  be  of 
interest  to  the  reader  to  have  a  fuller  knowledge  of  the 
mediatorial  office  exercised  between  sovereign  and  sove- 
reign, nation  and  nation,  almost  from  the  days  of  Constan- 
tine  down  to  those  of  Gregory  XV.  (1621-1623).  The  bene- 
fits conferred  on  civilization,  on  humanity,  by  the  action 
of  the  Popes,  called  upon  to  arbitrate  in  the  most  important 
emergencies,  and  to  end  or  prevent  sanguinary  wars  by 
their  decisions,  have  been  fully  acknowledged  by  non- 
Catholic  writers  of  the  greatest  eminence  during  the  last 
three  centuries. 

And  since  we  are  dealing  in  this  chapter  with  an  act  of 
the  Imperial  government  at  BerKn,  there  is  a  special  appro- 
priateness in  quoting,  in  the  first  place,  the  words  of  a 
Protestant  historian,  a  native  of  that  city,  and  one  of  its 
most  illustrious  scholars  in  our  day.* 

"  During  the  middle  ages,"  says  Ancillon,  "  when  there 
was  no  social  order,  the  Papacy  alone,  perhaps,  saved  Eu- 
rope from  total  barbarism.  It  created  bonds  of  connection 
between  the  most  distant  nations ;  it  was  a  common  centre, 
a  rallying-point  for  isolated  states.  ...  It  was  a  supreme 
tribunal,  established  in  the  midst  of  universal  anarchy,  and 
its  decrees  were  sometimes  as  respectable  as  they  were  re- 
spected. It  prevented  and  arrested  the  despotism  of  the 
emperors,  compensated  for  the  want  of  equilibrium,  and 
diminished  the  inconveniences  of  the  feudal  system."  f 

*  Johann  Peter  Friedrich  Ancillon,  born  1766,  died  1837. 

f  Ancillon,  "  Tableau  des  Revolutions  du  Systeme  Politique  de  1'Eu- 
rope,"  i.  pp.  79,  106,  Berlin,  1803.  Quoted  from  Count  Murphy's  admir- 
able book,  "The  Chair  of  Peter,"  2d  ed.,  p.  620. 

539 


54O  LIFE  OF  LEO  XII L 

What  Ancillon  taught  in  Prussia,  that  the  Calvimst 
Guizot  taught  in  France. 

"  Every  one  is  aware,"  he  says  in  his  sixth  lecture  on 
"  Civilization  in  Europe,"  "  that  it  was  by  the  '  Truce  of 
God  '  and  numerous  measures  of  the  same  nature  that  the 
Church  struggled  against  the  employment  of  force  and  de- 
voted itself  to  introduce  into  society  a  greater  degree  of 
order  and  gentleness.  These  facts  are  so  well  known  that  I 
am  spared  the  trouble  of  entering  into  any  detail." 

To  be  sure  the  facts  are  well  known,  but  our  age  has  a 
faculty  for  overlooking  or  forgetting  everything  favorable  to 
the  Papacy;  because  ever  since  Pius  VI.  and  .Pius  VII.  were 
carried  off  to  France  and  imprisoned,  while  their  dominions 
were  confiscated  by  the  unscrupulous  conqueror,  and  since 
the  Revolution  consummated  in  the  person  of  Pius  IX.  the 
work  of  spoliation  it  had  twice  begun  in  his  two  prede- 
cessors of  the  same  name,  it  has  become  too  often  the  rule 
to  revive  only  such  memories  of  the  Papacy  as  may  help 
the  present  generation  to  consider  it  as  the  enemy  of  popu- 
lar liberty  in  the  past,  and  the  great  obstacle  to  the  progress 
of  humanity. 

So  did  not  think  one  who  did,  perhaps,  even  more  than 
Luther  to  lower  the  Papacy  in  the  estimation  of  mankind— 
the  man  who  has  been  justly  called  the  parent  of  the  Revolu- 
tion in  its  most  anti-Christian  aspect.  Let  us  hear  Voltaire  : 

"  The  interests  of  the  human  race  demand  a  check  to 
restrain  sovereigns  and  to  protect  the  lives  of  the  people. 
This  check  of  religion  could,  by  universal  agreement,  have 
been  in  the  hands  of  the  Popes.  These  first  Pontiffs,  by 
not  meddling  in  temporal  quarrels  except  to  appease  them, 
by  admonishing  kings  and  peoples  of  their  duties,  by  re- 
proving their  offences,  by  reserving  excommunications  for 
great  crimes,  would  have  been  always  regarded  as  the 
images  of  God  upon  earth.  But  men  are  reduced  to  have 
for  their  defence  only  the  laws  and  morals  of  their  country 
— laws  often  despised,  morals  often  depraved."  * 

*  Voltaire,  "Essais,"  ii.  ch.  ix. 


n 

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111        Z 
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O 


541 


542  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIIL 

Another  distinguished  French  Protestant,  the  contempo- 
rary and  friend  of  Guizot,  furnishes  an  apt  commentary  on 
this  passage  from  the  philosopher  of  Ferney : 

"  In  those  dark  ages,"  says  M.  Coquerel,  "  we  see  no  ex- 
ample of  tyranny  comparable  to  that  of  the  Domitians  at 
Rome.  A  Tiberius  was  then  impossible  ;  Rome  would  have 
crushed  him.  Great  despotisms  exist  when  kings  believe 
that  there  is  nothing  above  themselves.  Then  it  is  that  the 
intoxication  of  unlimited  power  produces  the  most  fearful 
crimes."  * 

But  superior  in  learning  and  in  the  esteem  of  the  two 
last  centuries  is  another  great  German  Protestant,  whose 
testimony  may  aptly  conclude  these  quotations : 

"  I  have  seen  something,"  Leibnitz  says,  "  of  the  pro- 
ject of  M.  de  Saint-Pierre  to  maintain  perpetual  peace  in 
Europe.  .  .  .  My  idea  would  be  to  establish,  ay,  even  in 
Rome,  a  tribunal  (to  decide  controversies  between  sove- 
reigns), and  to  make  the  Pope  its  president,  as  he  really  in 
former  ages  figured  as  judge  between  Christian  princes. 
But  ecclesiastics  should,  at  the  same  time,  resume  their  an- 
cient authority,  and  an  interdict  or  an  excommunication 
should  make  kings  and  kingdoms  tremble  as  in  the  days  of 
Nicholas  I.  or  Gregory  VII."  f 

This  great  man,  rising  above  everything  like  narrow  sec- 
tarian views,  and  having  in  mind  only  the  general  welfare 
of  Christendom,  and,  through  Christendom,  the  interest 
and  progress  in  true  civilization  of  the  entire  human  race, 
thus  speaks  of  the  exercise  of  the  Papal  supremacy  over 
Christian  peoples  and  their  rulers: 

"  Thus  Christ  reigns,  conquers,  commands,  since  his- 
tory shows  that  most  of  the  Western  nations  have  with 
earnest  piety  submitted  themselves  to  the  Church.  Nor  do 
I  dispute  whether  or  not  these  things  are  of  divine  right. 
It  is  clear  that  they  were  done  with  unanimous  consent, 

*  Coquerel,  "  Essai  sur  1'Hist.  Generate  du  Christianisme,"  p.  75, 
Paris,  1828. 

f  Leibnitz,  "  Opera,"  v.  p.  65.  He  was  the  founder  and  first  president 
of  the  Academy  of  Sciences  at  Berlin  ;  died  November  14,  1716 


AFFAIR    OF   THE   CAROLINA S  ISLANDS.  543 

that  they  could  be  done  with  perfect  propriety,  and  that 
they  are  not  opposed  to  the  common  welfare  of  Christen- 
dom. For  it  not  unfrequently  happens  that  the  care  and 
salvation  of  souls  are  identified  with  the  common  good."  * 

Leibnitz,  in  thus  desiring  to  see  the  Christian  family  of 
nations  preserved  from  the  despotism  of  sovereigns  on  the 
one  hand,  and  the  awful  calamities  of  war  on  the  other, 
must  have  had  in  mind  two  memorable  instances  of  appeal 
to  the  mediatorial  office  of  the  Papacy,  at  the  close  of  the 
fifteenth  century  and  toward  the  end  of  the  sixteenth. 
The  one  was  the  reference  to  Alexander  VI.  of  the  dispute 
between  the  sovereigns  of  Spain  and  Portugal  concerning 
the  limits  of  their  possessions  in  the  recently  discovered 
New  World  ;  the  other  was  the  mediation  invoked  by 
Russia  in  the  reign  of  Pope  Gregory  XIII.  (1572-83),  and 
of  which  we  have  extant  so  authentic  and  interesting  a  nar- 
rative, f 

Whatever  Leibnitz  may  have  thought,  Protestant  and 
German  though  he  was,  of  reviving  as  one  of  the  weapons 
of  international  Christian  law  the  usage  of  interdicts  and 
excommunications  toward  refractory  princes  and  their  sub- 
jects, it  is  certain  that  such  revival  is  not  wished  for  at 
Rome  or  by  the  Catholic  world.  But  the  restoration,  in 
practice  at  least,  if  not  in  public  law,  of  the  mediatorial 
office  of  the  Papacy  would  be  an  unmitigated  blessing. 

And  this  conclusion  is  most  eloquently  demonstrated 
by  the  action  of  Germany  and  Spain  in  the  affair  of  the 
Carolinas,  and  the  prompt  and  peaceful  solution  arrived  at 
by  Leo  XIII. 

The  group  of  islands  in  the  Pacific  Ocean  known  as  the 
"  Carolinas  and  Palaos  Isles  "  had  been  first  discovered  by 
Spanish  navigators  and  named  by  them.  Although  their 
remoteness  from  the  ordinary  highways  of  ocean  travel, 

*  Leibnitz,  '•  Tractatus  de  Jure  Suprematus,"  part  iii. — G.  G.  Leibnitzii 
"  Opera  Omnia,"  vol.  iv.  p.  299,  6  vols.  410,  Geneva,  1768. 

f  See  in  Revue  des  Questions  Historiques  for  January,  1885,  Pierling's 
"  Un  Arbitrage  Pontifical  au  XVIeme  Siecle  ;  Mission  Diplomatique  de 
Possevin  a  Moscou." 


544 


LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 


and  their  comparative  insignificance  in  a  commercial  point 
of  view,  prevented  any  serious  effort  at  colonization,  still 
the  conversion  of  their  inhabitants  to  Christianity  was  al- 
ways an  object  of  practical  zeal  for  the  Spanish  mission- 
aries. To  the  interrupted  and  unsuccessful  attempts  made 
to  enlighten  the  natives  succeeded  a  well-organized  plan  of 
conversion  and  a  resolve  to  effect  a  permanent  settlement 
in  the  archipelago  during  the  reign  of  Philip  V.  This  pro- 
ject received  a  warm  encouragement  at  Rome,  where  the 
Congregation  de  Propaganda  Fide  was  kept  informed  of 
the  progress  of  this  settlement  and  the  labors  of  the  mis- 
sionaries. The  Popes  themselves,  in  their  commendatory 
letters  to  the  Spanish  king,  praised  him  for  the  effective  aid 
given  to  the  ministers  of  the  Gospel  in  these  remote  parts. 

But  the  long  and  disastrous  War  of  Succession,  brought 
about  by  the  fact  of  a  grandson  of  the  powerful  French 
king  inheriting  the  Spanish  crown,  and  thereby  threaten- 
ing to  make  France  mistress  of  the  Peninsula  and  of  Spain's 
transatlantic  empire,  ended  in  utterly  destroying  the  Span- 
ish power  and  sweeping  her  ships  from  the  seas.  The  mis- 
sion to  the  Carolinas  and  Palaos  Islands  was  forcibly  aban- 
doned, and  so  was  the  project  of  a  solid  and  permanent 
colonial  settlement. 

Practically,  therefore,  whatever  may  have  been  the  right 
of  dominion  acquired  to  Spain  by  discovery  and  first  occu- 
pation, the  Carolinas  Islands  in  1870,  at  the  birth  of  the 
new  German  Empire,  were  in  the  position  of  forsaken  lands, 
which  become  the  property  of  the  first  man  who  settles  on 
them  and  by  settlement  establishes  a  proprietary  right. 

United  Germany,  under  the  imperial  sceptre  of  the 
house  of  Hohenzollern,  felt  and  entertained  the  natural 
and  noble  ambition  of  possessing  a  powerful  military  and 
commercial  navy,  and  of  opening  for  the  surplus  Germanic 
populations,  so  long  overflowing  into  the  United  States, 
transmarine  colonies,  where  its  sons  might  seek  a  home  and 
found  an  empire  like  those  which  emigrants  from  the  British 
Isles  are  creating  in  Southeast  Africa,  in  Australia,  in  India, 
and  in  the  Canadian  confederation.  The  opening  of  the 


GERMANY  DESIRES  A  COLONIAL  EMPIRE.       545 

Suez  Canal  and  the  hoped-for  speedy  completion  of  that  of 
Panama,  the  rapid  development  of  the  Pacific  States  in  the 
great  American  Republic,  and  the  brisk  trade  and  rapid  in- 
tercourse opened  up  between  .them  and  between  Oceania, 
Australia,  Japan,  China,  and  all  the  peoples  of  Eastern  Asia, 
were  beginning  about  this  period  to  give  to  every  group  of 
islets  throughout  the  vast  expanse  of  the  Pacific  Ocean  a 
value  and  importance  unsuspected  till  now.  England  and 
France  vied  with  each  other  in  occupying  such  of  the  Pa- 
cific islands  as  had  no  possessor,  or  in  claiming  a  protec- 
torate over  others.  The  great  paths  of  travel  across  the 
bosom  of  the  great  ocean  between  America  and  Asia  were 
mapped  out.  Every  speck  of  land  which  peeped  above  the 
waves  in  or  near  these  highways  of  actual  or  future  com- 
merce and  civilization  was  seized  upon  by  the  European 
maritime  powers.  The  United  States  alone,  satisfied  with 
their  broad  birthright  of  the  best  part  of  a  continent,  and 
with  their  homes  bordering  the  shores  of  both  the  Atlantic 
and  the  Pacific,  watched  with  indifference  the  greedy  rivalry 
of  the  Old  World  empires.  England  was  ever  pushing  the 
limits  of  her  possessions  in  India  nearer  and  nearer  to  the 
East  Indian  Archipelago  and  the  islands  which  form  the 
stepping-stones  to  Australia  and  New  Zealand.  The  Aus- 
tralians and  New-Zealanders  themselves,  enlightened  by 
the  dawn  of  a  new  era  on  their  own  lands  and  forecasting 
their  great  destinies  in  the  future,  began  to  annex  the  out- 
lying islands  in  the  surrounding  seas;  while  France,  un- 
warned by  her  diminishing  population  at  home,  by  the  fast- 
growing  strength  of  her  giant  neighbor  and  enemy,  and  by 
the  internal  discontent,  divisions,  and  anarchy  begotten  by 
her  anti-Christian  spirit,  legislation,  and  policy,  threw  her- 
self on  the  shores  of  Cochin  China  and  Tonquin  to  found 
an  empire  which  should  rival  those  of  England  and  Russia 
in  the  far  East. 

With  prospects  of  growth  and  prosperity  far  otherwise 
than  flattering,  the  great  German  chancellor  looked  out  for 
every  foothold  he  could  occupy  for  his  countrymen  from 
the  Straits  of  Gibraltar,  all  along  the  African  shores,  to  the 


546  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

Indian  Ocean  and  the  myriad  islands  of  the  Pacific.  Even 
where  the  continents  offer  no  room  for  new  ownership,  or 
where  the  most  important  islands  are  already  covered  by 
some  European  flag,  any  one  of  the  almost  forgotten  or 
overlooked  coral  islets  are  valuable  as  stations  for  the  fleets 
which  are  beginning  to  traverse  the  Pacific  in  every  direc- 
tion. 

England,  in  the  interval  between  1870  and  1875,  had  re- 
marked the  importance  of  the  Carolinas  and  Palaos  groups, 
and  so  had  Germany.  In  the  latter  year  both  powers  re- 
solved to  occupy  the  most  favorable  positions  in  this  archi- 
pelago, and  formally  presented  a  joint  note  to  Spain  de- 
claring that  they  could  not  recognize  her  ownership  of 
islands  she  had  so  long  abandoned. 

German  colonists,  on  the  contrary,  had  established  them- 
selves at  several  points  in  the  archipelago,  and  formed  there 
flourishing  plantations  and  trading-posts.  These  facts,  com 
ing  to  the  knowledge  of  the  Spanish  government  and  peo- 
ple, did  what  enlightened  self-interest  and  a  spirit  of  enter- 
prise had  failed  to  do — aroused  a  determination  not  to  yield 
to  strangers  even  these  remote  and  certainly  forgotten  frac- 
tions of  the  vast  colonial  empire  of  Philip  II.  Spain,  un- 
happily, was,  like  her  next  neighbor,  France,  a  chronic 
though  it  may  be  an  unconscious  prey  to  that  terrible  and 
mortal  decline  implanted  by  the  joint  virus  of  Illuminism 
and  Voltaireanism.  The  contagion  had  come  from  across 
the  Pyrenees.  The  patient,  though  her  life-blood  was  poi- 
soned and  her  strength  slowly  but  surely  wasting  away,  la- 
bored under  the  delusion  of  all  consumptives — that  she  was 
strong  as  ever,  that  nothing  serious  was  the  matter  with  her. 
Her  popular  masses  still  believe  her  the  most  powerful  of 
nations. 

Her  pride,  therefore,  was  fearfully  aroused  when  the 
joint  note  of  England  and  Germany  was  presented  in  1875. 
It  was  stirred  to  a  pitch  of  uncontrollable  fury  when  in  the 
first  months  of  1885  the  German  flag  appeared  in  sove- 
reignty over  the  waters  of  the  archipelago.  The  island  of 
Yap  was  formally  occupied. 


A   SERIOUS  CRISIS  IN  SPAIN.  547 

On  August  14  the  Spanish  cabinet  decided  to  address 
an  official  protest  to  the  Powers  against  this  occupation ; 
and  three  days  thereafter,  on  August  17,  the  German  gov- 
ernment officially  notified  them  of  the  act  of  taking  posses- 
sion. The  agitation  throughout  Spain  became  intense.  In 
Madrid  there  was  a  formidable  demonstration,  and  it  re- 
quired all  the  energy  of  the  civil  and  military  authorities  to 
repress  the  attempts  at  lawlessness  and  even  open  insurrec- 
tion. As  time  went  on,  and  it  was  found  that  Germany 
would  not  recede  from  her  position,  in  which  she  was  sup- 
ported by  England,  the  effervescence  grew  apace.  The  na- 
tion, and  the  opposition  press  in  particular,  was  clamorous 
for  immediate  war.  Of  course  the  practical  good  sense  of 
King  Alfonso  made  him  feel  that  Spain  was  totally  unpre- 
pared to  wage  war,  her  army  being  but  ill-organized,  her 
military  navy  utterly  useless,  and  her  finances  in  an  almost 
hopeless  state  of  confusion.  Germany  was  too  far  away  to 
be  reached  by  land ;  and  were  she  situated  at  the  -gates  of 
the  Peninsula,  she  had  nothing  to  fear  from  Spain.  So  ne- 
gotiations dragged  their  slow  length  along,  till  the  tidings 
reached  Madrid  of  what  had  happened  in  the  port  of  Jomil, 
island  of  Yap,  on  August  25,  when  both  a  Spanish  and  a 
German  war-vessel  planted  simultaneously  the  flags  of  their 
nations  and  took  formal  possession  of  the  country. 

The  tidings  of  this  seeming  act  of  hostility  reached 
Madrid  on  September  4.  On  the  morrow  the  entire  popu- 
lation apparently  descended  into  the  streets,  attacked  and 
sacked  the  palace  of  the  German  ambassador,  tore  down  the 
German  arms  and  trampled  them  under  foot,  and  burned 
the  German  flag  with  every  circumstance  of  ignominy. 

It  was  a  most  serious  crisis  for  the  brave  young  king  and 
his  government.  But  his  was  not  a  spirit  to  be  frightened 
by  a  mob,  or  to  be  hurried  into  a  bootless  war  by  the  sense- 
less cries  of  the  popular  masses.  Nevertheless,  some  satis- 
faction must  be  given  to  the  national  sentiment  wounded  in 
its  honor.  The  Spanish  ambassador  in  Berlin  is  ordered  to 
hold  himself  in  readiness  to  ask  for  his  passports  at  any 
moment. 


548  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

Meanwhile,  and  as  the  whole  civilized  world  is  expecting 
a  declaration  of  war  and  the  breaking  out  of  hostilities,  the 
happy  thought  occurs,  and  is  seized  upon  by  both  cabinets, 
of  submitting  the  entire  question  of  the  occupation  of  the 
Carolinas  to  the  arbitration  of  the  Holy  See.  On  Septem- 
ber 24  it  is  officially  announced  that  the  Pope  has  been 
offered  and  has  accepted  this  delicate  mission,  but  one 
which  may  lead  to  an  amicable  settlement  of  the  difficulty, 
and  prevent  the  effusion  of  blood  and  what,  to  Spain,  would 
have  been  a  most  ruinous  warfare. 

Leo  XIII.  knew  and  felt  the  responsibility  thus  cast 
upon  him.  He  was  fully  alive  to  the  necessity  of  putting  a 
speedy  termination  to  a  crisis  which,  in  Spain  at  least,  was 
of  the  most  intense  acuteness.  He  deputed  to  a  commis- 
sion of  cardinals,  the  most  eminent  jurists  and  diplomatists 
in  the  Sacred  College,  the  examination  of  the  double  ques- 
tion of  fact  and  of  international  law  involved  in  the  case, 
with  directions  to  use  the  utmost  diligence  in  investigating 
and  reporting. 

In  less  than  a  month,  on  October  22,  Cardinal  Jacobini 
sent  to  the  cabinets  of  Madrid  and  Berlin  the  Pope's  deci- 
sion, which  consisted  in  four  points  on  which  both  govern- 
ments were  to  agree,  the  fact  of  Spain's  ancient  discovery 
of  the  Carolinas  and  of  their  occupation  by  her  being  laid 
down  as  one  ground  for  conciliation,  and  the  liberty  of  Ger- 
mans in  the  archipelago  to  occupy  land,  develop  agriculture, 
cultivate  industry  and  commerce  on  a  footing  of  equality 
with  Spanish  subjects  being  also  guaranteed,  together  with 
a  naval  station  for  Germany  and  perfect  freedom  of  naviga- 
tion throughout  the  archipelago. 

Thus  Spanish  sovereignty  and  German  interests  were 
safeguarded  by  the  terms  proposed  from  the  Vatican.  It 
was  an  admirable  decision ;  it  gave  satisfaction  in  both 
countries  to  governments  and  peoples,  and  all  danger  of 
war  was  averted. 

The  final  articles  of  agreement,  drawn  up  in  the  Vati- 
can, and  accepted  for  the  respective  sovereigns  by  the  Mar- 
quis de  Fogores  and  Herr  Von  Schloezer,  their  plenipoten- 


LEO  XIIi:S  JUDGMENT  ACCEPTED  AND  RATIFIED.     549 

tiaries  near  the  Holy  See,  were  solemnly  signed  on  Decem- 
ber 17,  1885 — a  conclusion  which  was  delayed  by  the  death 
of  Alfonso  XII.  on  November  25. 

The  blessing  of  a  peace  thus  maintained,  and  of  the  ca- 
lamities of  a  ruinous  war  from  which  the  nation  was  saved 
by  the  moral  courage  of  the  young  sovereign,  was  the  last 
which  Alfonso  bestowed  on  his  people.  He  had  wished  to 
save  them  from  the  devastations  of  cholera,  or  at  least  to 
sustain  and  cheer  them  under  its  awful  visitations,  rendered 
more  awful  still  by  the  destruction  and  misery  wrought  by 
earthquakes,  by  exposing  his  own  life  to  every  danger  in 
visiting,  consoling,  and  relieving  the  sufferers.  Immortal 
honor  to  his  heroic  spirit !  He  was  no  unworthy  heir  of 
Sancho-el-Bravo  and  of  Sancho's  grandfather,  the  greatest 
of  Christian  kings,  St.  Ferdinand.  May  Spain,  wearied  and 
wasted,  and  sighing  for  rest  and  restoration,  reap  the  fruits 
of  such  examples  and  such  sacrifices ! 

But  let  us  glance  a  moment  at  this  act  of  mediation  of 
Leo  XIII. 

The  relations  of  the  Holy  See  with  both  Spain  and  Ger- 
many in  September,  1885,  were  not  a  little  delicate  and 
complicated.  The  Spanish  government  administered  by 
Canovas  del  Castillo,  in  spite  of  its  conservative  professions, 
yielded  to  the  radical  and  revolutionary  tendencies  of  a 
powerful  minority  in  the  legislature  and  the  press,  and  that 
on  the  point  most  vital  to  the  real  welfare  of  the  nation: — the 
education  of  youth.  The  Concordat  of  1854,  in  which  it 
was  expressly  and  solemnly  stipulated  that  the  teaching  in 
all  the  government  schools  of  every  grade  should  be  strictly 
in  conformity  with  Catholic  doctrine  and  practice,  was 
openly  violated.  Indeed,  the  ministry  then  in  power  had 
gone  a  step  in  advance  beyond  their  immediate  predeces- 
sors in  office  in  this  wrong  direction.  They  had  sanctioned, 
in  the  university  and  intermediate  schools,  a  system  of  in- 
struction hostile  not  only  to  Christianity  but  to  all  positive 
religion.  Besides,  the  superintendence  guaranteed  by  the 
Concordat  to  the  Spanish  hierarchy  over  all  schools,  and 
the  right  of  visitation  inherent  in  their  office,  had  long 


550  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

been  rendered  impossible  by  royal  decrees  modifying  the 
Concordat — repealing,  rather,  its  most  important  provisions 
— and  that  either  without  consulting  the  Holy  See  or  in 
spite  of  its  energetic  opposition. 

So  were  the  political  guides  of  a  Catholic  people  giv- 
ing up  to  the  forces  of  irreligion  which  beset  them  what 
remained  of  their  institutions  round  about — the  very  edu- 
cation of  youth,  the  springs  of  the  national  life. 

In  Germany  the  admirable  wisdom  and  moderation  of 
Leo  XIII.  had  succeeded  in  winning  the  esteem  of  both 
the  emperor  and  his  all-powerful  chancellor  in  obtaining 
the  repeal  of  the  "  Falk  Laws,"  in  filling  the-  most  impor- 
tant episcopal  sees,  long  deprived  of  the  presence  of  a  bish- 
op, and  in  modifying  the  hard  conditions  imposed  on  the 
parochial  clergy  by  the  civil  authorities. 

It  was  only  a  beginning  in  a  work  of  conciliation,  resto- 
ration, and  reparation  which  many  had  despaired  of,  but  it 
was  a  great  beginning.  Both  the  Emperor  William  and  the 
great  chancellor  had  discovered  that  the  worst  foes  of  social 
order  in  Germany  and  of  the  empire  which  their  joint  labors 
had  founded  were  not  the  seventeen  or  twenty  millions  of 
Catholic  citizens  it  counted.  They  had  also  found  out  that 
the  dogma  of  Papal  Infallibility  contained  nothing  which 
need  alarm  the  lawful  rights  of  civil  sovereignty;  the  bug- 
bear held  up  by  Dollingcr  and  his  followers  to  excite  the 
national  susceptibilities  had  long  vanished  in  thin  air  be- 
fore the  light  of  impartial  truth. 

On  the  other  hand,  it  was  found  that  no  denomination  of 
Christians  taught  doctrines  so  conservative  of  social  order, 
so  favorable  to  the  authority  of  the  prince  and  the  magis- 
trate, so  conducive  to  an  enlightened  and  generous  obe- 
dience on  the  part  of  the  citizen,  as  the  Catholic  Church. 
In  the  successive  criminal  attempts  made  on  his  life  the 
venerable  Emperor  of  Germany,  when  the  first  excitement 
and  alarm  were  over,  had  found  that  the  conspirators  were 
neither  Catholics  nor  acting  in  sympathy  with  any  portion 
of  his  Catholic  subjects.  Catholicism,  it  gradually  dawned 
on  him  and  his  counsellors,  was  one  of  the  strongest  bul- 


LEO  XIII :S  ACCOUNT  OF  THE  MEDIA  TION.  551 

warks  of  his  throne,  one  of  the  surest  safeguards  of  his  life. 
He  could  trust  both  the  one  and  the  other  to  the  con- 
science, the  honor,  the  devotion  of  his  Catholic  subjects. 

Moreover,  the  doctrinal  encyclicals  successively  pub- 
lished by  Leo  XIII.  were  so  admirably  conceived,  ex- 
pressed, and  calculated  that  they  could  not  but  force  on 
such  minds  as  Bismarck's  the  conviction  that  the  Catholic 
Church  alone  was  the  great  school  of  social  doctrine,  and 
that  her  Pontiffs  were  the  only  authority  in  the  civilized 
world  which  laid  down  the  law  of  belief  and  of  life  for  the 
nations  with  a  power  which  carried  with  it  the  conviction 
that  Rome  still  spoke  the  words  of  Christ. 

Every  encyclical  of  Leo  XIII.,  every  one  of  his  official 
acts,  raised  him  ever  higher  and  higher  in  the  esteem  of 
the  German  chancellor — no  mean  judge  of  men,  of  their  ac- 
quirements, their  motives,  and  their  achievements. 

Nevertheless,  the  fact  that  the  Protestant  Emperor  of 
Germany  and  his  Protestant  chancellor  had  chosen  the 
Pope  as  arbiter  in  this  angry  dispute  about  the  Carolinas 
Islands  took  the  whole  civilized  world  by  surprise.  Would 
Leo  XIII.  hold  the  balance  with  a  firm  hand  between  the 
two  powers  ?  Could  he  help  remembering  that  Spain  was 
still  Catholic,  no  matter  what  might  be  the  inconsistencies 
of  her  rulers  or  the  radical  tendencies  to  which  her  states- 
men yielded  ?  Could  he  forget  the  cruel,  the  gratuitous 
persecutions  heaped  by  the  Prussian  legislature  and  the 
Imperial  government  of  Germany  on  bishops,  priests,  and 
laymen  simply  because  of  their  fidelity  to  principle  and 
their  attachment  to  the  Holy  See? 

The  extraordinarily  prompt  decision  of  the  tribunal,  so 
often  appealed  to  in  the  past  by  nations  and  their  rulers, 
first  astonished  expectant  Europe,  and  then  the  almost  sim- 
ultaneous tidings  that  the  decision  was  acceptable  to  both 
the  appealing  parties  completed  the  surprise. 

Let  us  hear  Leo  XIII.  himself  giving  to  the  cardinals, 
assembled  in  consistory,  an  account  of  the  transaction :  * 

*  Allocution  of  January  15,  1886.     (See  Appendix  E.) 


552  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

"We  gladly  accepted  the  office  thus  entrusted  to  us," 
he  says,  "  because  we  hoped  thereby  to  serve  the  cause  of 
peace  and  humanity.  We  therefore  examined  and  weighed 
in  the  balance  of  an  impartial  and  equitable  judgment  the 
arguments  of  both  litigants,  and  then  we  submitted  to  them 
certain  propositions  as  a  basis  of  mutual  agreement,  which 
we  hoped  would  prove  acceptable  to  them. 

"  Spain  brought  forward  many  reasons  in  support  of 
her  right  to  that  distant  portion  of  Micronesia.  She  was 
the  first  nation  whose  ships  had  reached  those  shores — a  fact 
acknowledged  by  the  most  distinguished  geographers.  The 
very  name  of  Carolinas  attested  the  Spanish  title.  Besides, 
the  kings  of  Spain  had  more  than  once  sent  thither  apos- 
tolic men  as  missionaries,  and  of  this  the  records  of  the 
Roman  Pontificate  afford  confirmatory  proof;  for  there  ex- 
ists a  letter  of  our  predecessor,  Clement  XI.,  to  Philip  V., 
written  in  1706,  praising  this  prince  for  having  equipped 
and  furnished  a  vessel  to  convey  missionaries  to  the  Caro- 
linas. In  it  the  Pontiff  also  exhorts  the  king  to  continue 
to  help  propagate  the  Christian  name  and  procure  the  sal- 
vation of  multitudes  of  human  beings. 

"  The  same  Pontiff  also  wrote  to  Louis  XIV.  beseech- 
ing him  not  to  hinder  in  any  way  the  carrying  out  of  an 
enterprise  so  happily  begun  by  his  grandson.  Again,  Philip 
V.  fixed  an  annual  sum  of  two  thousand  crowns  to  be  set 
apart  for  the  support  of  these  missions.  Furthermore,  no 
nation  but  the  Spanish  ever  did  anything  to  bring  the  light 
of  the  Gospel  to  these  islands.  And,  finally,  whatever  in- 
formation we  possess  of  the  manner  of  living  and  customs 
of  the  natives  has  been  furnished  by  the  missionaries. 

"  From  this  series  of  facts,  viewed  especially  in  the  light 
of  the  international  jurisprudence  then  in  vigor,  it  is  evi- 
dent that  the  right  of  Spain  to  the  Carolinas  Islands  is 
fairly  established.  For  if  any  claim  to  sovereignty  can  be 
derived  from  the  labor  of  civilizing  a  barbarous  country, 
this  claim  must  be  highest  in  favor  of  such  as  endeavor  to 
reclaim  barbarians  from  pagan  superstition  to  the  Gospel 
morality,  inasmuch  as  in  true  religion  are  to, be  found  all 


THE  MEDIATORIAL  OFFICE  OF  THE  PAPACY.       553 

the  most  powerful  civilizing  forces.  On  this  principle  were 
often  founded  the  rights  of  sovereignty ;  and  this  was  the 
case,  for  instance,  of  several  islands  in  the  ocean,  of  which 
not  a  few  bear  names  given  them  by  the  Christian  religion. 

"  Seeing,  therefore,  that  a  constant  and  well-founded 
public. opinion  conceded  to  Spain  the  sovereignty  over  the 
Carolinas,  it  is  not  surprising  that  when  the  late  dispute 
began  about  their  possession  the  whole  Spanish  nation  was 
stirred  with  such  excitement  as  to  threaten  not  only  the  in- 
ternal peace  of  the  kingdom,  but  to  imperil  its  relations 
with  a  friendly  power. 

"  To  the  arguments  brought  forward  by  Spain,  Germany 
on  her  side  opposed  others  also  based  on  the  law  of  nations 
— that  residence  on  land  is  necessary  to  possession ;  that, 
taking  into  account  the  facts  of  recent  history,  the  law  of 
nations  sanctions  as  legitimate  the  claim  to  ownership  of 
territory  when  the  claimant  occupies  and  uses  it ;  that 
where  the  territory  is  not  so  occupied  and  used  the  land  is 
accounted  as  having  no  owner.  Wherefore,  considering  the 
fact  that  the  Carolinas  had  not  during  a  century  and  a  half 
been  occupied  by  Spain,  these  islands  should  have  been 
adjudged  the  property  of  the  first  person  taking  possession 
of  them.  In  addition  to  these  reasons  it  was  alleged  that 
some  such  dispute  as  the  present  having  arisen  in  the  year 
1875,  both  Germany  and  Great  Britain  affirmed  they  did 
not  at  all  acknowledge  the  sovereignty  of  Spain  over  the 
Carolinas. 

"  In  this  divergence  of  opinions  we  took  into  account 
the  respective  rights  and  interests  of  the  two  contending 
nations,  and  confidently  submitted  a  plan  which  we  thought 
well  fitted  for  bringing  about  a  peaceful  settlement  of  the 
difficulty.  We  were  guided  solely  in  this  by  our  own  sense 
of  equity,  and,  as  you  are  aware,  both  parties  willingly  ac- 
cepted our  proposal. 

"Thus  was  accomplished  an  event  which  the  present 
currents  of  public  opinion  forbade  us  to  look  forward  to. 
Providence  willed  that  two  illustrious  nations  should  do 
homage  to  the  supreme  authority  in  the  Church  by  asking 


554  LIFE  OF  LEO 

it  to  fulfil  an  office  so  much  in  keeping  with  its  nature,  to 
preserve  by  its  action  the  threatened  peace  and  harmony 
between  them.  This  is  the  fruit  of  that  salutary  and  benefi- 
cent influence  which  God  has  attached  to  the  power  of  the 
Supreme  Pontiffs.  Superior  to  the  envious  jealousy  of  its 
enemies,  and  more  mighty  than  the  prevailing  iniquity  of 
the  age,  it  is  subject  neither  to  destruction  nor  to  change. 

"  From  all  this,  too,  it  becomes  manifest  how  grievous 
an  evil  are  the  wars  waged  against  the  Apostolic  See  and 
the  lessening  of  its  rightful  liberty.  For  thereby  it  is  not 
merely  justice  and  religion  that  are  made  to  suffer,  but  the 
public  good  itself,  since  in  the  present  critical'  and  change- 
ful condition  of  public  affairs  the  Roman  Pontificate  would 
confer  far  greater  benefits  on  the  world  if,  with  perfect  free- 
dom and  rights  unimpaired,  it  could  devote  all  its  energies 
to  promoting,  without  hindrance,  the  salvation  of  the  hu- 
man race." 

The  concluding  words  of  this  brief  allocution,  affirming 
solemnly,  as  they  do,  the  benefits  to  civilization  and  human- 
ity which  naturally  flow  from  the  exercise  by  the  Popes  of 
the  functions  of  mediators  between  nation  and  nation,  de- 
serve the  serious  attention  of  both  modern  statesmen  and 
modern  peoples.  Had  the  burning  questions  pending  be- 
tween the  free  and  slaveholding  States  of  the  American 
Union  been  submitted  to  such  mediation  or  arbitration  as 
that  of  the  Sovereign  Pontiff  before  1860,  what  bloodshed, 
what  desolation,  what  commercial  ruin,  what  manifold  na- 
tional calamities  might  have  been  avoided  !  Do  not  say 
that  the  religious  sense  of  a  Protestant  nation  would  not 
have  entertained  the  idea  of  such  arbitration  ;  do  not  be- 
lieve that  there  existed  not  in  Rome  statesmen,  diplomat- 
ists, jurists,  men  versed  in  the  historical  facts  and  the  con- 
stitutional aspects  of  our  great  slavery  problem  and  of  the 
other  territorial,  legal,  and  political  difficulties  connected 
therewith. 

Rome,  as  it  then  existed — the  Rome  of  the  Popes,  with 
the  Papal  sovereignty  and  freedom  unshackled — would  have 
constituted  a  tribunal  of  arbitration  endowed  \vith  qualities 


A  BOON  TO  THE  NATIONS.  555 

and  attributes  which,  for  the  purposes  of  an  American  ap- 
peal, could  have  been  found  nowhere  else.  It  was  the  se- 
rious interest  and  the  fervent  wish  of  Pius  IX.,  then  reign- 
ing, of  the  great  statesmen  and  churchmen  who  surrounded 
him  (as  it  was,  indeed,  of  the  entire  Catholic  world,  as  suchl, 
that  the  Union  should  be  preserved  ;  that  nothing  should 
oppose  or  impair  the  development  of  the  national  life ;  that 
slavery  should  be  so  gradually  extinguished  and  slave-labor 
so  transformed  into  free  that  the  South  should  not  suffer 
in  its  proprietary  or  agricultural  interests,  while  the  certain 
prospect  of  such  extinction  would  appease  the  anti-slavery 
sentiment  of  the  free  States.  Neither  Great  Britain,  nor 
Germany,  nor  France,  nor  any  other  power  which  we  could 
name,  offered,  as  mediators,  the  disinterestedness  and  the 
absolute  fitness  for  examining  and  deciding  in  our  case 
which  all  must  acknowledge  in  the  Papal  tribunal. 

England  and  France  were  notoriously  desirous  of  seeing 
the  Union  dissolved  and  the  growth  of  the  national  power 
thus  crippled  for  ever.  There  was  then  no  German  Empire, 
no  United  Germany  ;  Austria  never  was  our  friend.  Every 
conceivable  interest  would  have  impelled  the  Pope  to  set- 
tle our  differences  without  any  danger  of  an  appeal  to 
arms,  without  ruin  to  the  South  or  loss  of  prestige  or  in- 
fluence to  the  North.  It  might  have  been  a  long  negotia- 
tion, but  no  interested  or  unnecessary  delay  would  have 
kept  the  nation  in  a  state  of  ferment.  And  such  a  plan 
of  settlement  and  concord  would  have  come  from  the  Vati- 
can as  to  satisfy  both  the  great  political  parties,  both  the 
sections  of  the  country,  and  to  have  enabled  the  patriotic 
and  generous-minded  of  all  opinions  to  work  thenceforward 
together  for  the  peaceful  and  gradual  removal  of  the  causes 
of  discontent. 

Even  when  nearly  two  millions  of  brothers  stood  fac- 
ing each  other  in  arms  in  the  terrible  conflict,  and  when 
Abraham  Lincoln  was  induced  to  make  the  steps  we  know 
toward  peace,  had  any  good  angel  persuaded  the  combat- 
ants to  suspend  their  mutual  carnage  and  to  submit  their 
cause  with  all  its  grievances  to  one  man,  the  acknowledged 


556  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

representative  on  earth  of  the  Prince  of  Peace,  we  should 
have  had  that  peace  with  honor  to  both  North  and  South 
—a  peace  that  should  not  have  left  behind  the  rankling 
memories  caused  by  subsequent  events. 

The  same  reasons  hold  with  regard  to  the  settlement 
of  the  Alabama  claims.  How  little  satisfaction  the  settle- 
ment arrived  at  has  given  to  either  nation,  how  great  and 
ruinous  were  the  delays  attendant  upon  the  assembling 
and  the  discussions  of  the  absurdly  complex  tribunal,  and 
how  enormous  the  costs  to  both  governments,  neither  Ame- 
ricans nor  Englishmen  are  likely  to  forget. 

The  concert  of  praise  which,  in  the  English-speaking 
world  and  elsewhere,  has  been  heard  after  the  settlement 
of  the  Hispano-German  quarrel,  is  an  assurance  that  non- 
Catholic  public  opinion  is  undergoing  deep  modifications 
not  unfavorable  to  the  Holy  See. 

The  day  is  not  far  distant  when  the  government  of  the 
United  States  will  find  it  both  wise  and  politic  to  imitate 
Prince  Bismarck  in  his  statesmanlike  conduct  towards  the 
Prisoner  of  the  Vatican,  maintain  an  ambassador  near  him 
to  represent  the  interests  of  our  growing  millions  of  Catho- 
lic citizens,  and  do  homage  to  the  supreme  learning,  incor- 
ruptible justice,  and  fatherly  love  of  peace  ever  to  be  found 
in  the  Vicar  of  Christ  on  earth. 

Of  course  the  revolutionary  press — both  in  Italy,  where 
it  is  found  necessary  to  justify  the  invasion,  spoliation,  and 
oppression  of  the  Papacy,  and  in  France,  where  they  are 
preparing  to  trample  under  foot  the  Concordat — will  con- 
tinue to  belittle  the  importance  of  this  act  of  mediation. 
Elsewhere  the  conviction  will  grow  steadily  that,  in  the 
words  of  Ancillon  quoted  at  the  beginning  of  this  chapter, 
there  should  be  "  a  common  centre,  a  rallying-point  for 
isolated  states,  ...  a  supreme  tribunal,  established  in  the 
midst  of  universal  anarchy,"  whose  decrees  are  sure  to  be 
"as  respectable  as  respected." 

One  other  remarkable  act  of  Leo  XIII.  relating  to  Spain 
was  his  bull  restoring  the  pilgrimage  to  Compostella. 

No  place  on  the  European  Continent,  after  Rome  itself, 


THE  SHRINE  OF  ST.  JAMES  AT  COMPOSTELLA.       557 

had  more  attractions  for  the  Catholic  heart  in  every  land 
all  through  the  middle  ages  than  the  reputed  tomb  of  the 
Apostle  St.  James  the  Elder  at  Compostella,  in  Galicia. 
The  tradition  about  his  relations  with  Spain  was,  briefly, 
this:  At  the  dispersion  of  the  apostles*  it  fell  to  the  lot  of 
James  the  Elder  to  carry  the  light  of  the  Gospel  to  Spain 
(A.D.  41-42).  After  founding  many  churches  throughout 
the  Peninsula,  James  returned  to  Jerusalem  with  alms  for 
the  afflicted  Christians  of  Palestine,  among  whom  a  great 
famine  prevailed.  Then  was  held  the  Council  of  Jerusa- 
lem, in  which  James  took  part.  His  death  is  briefly  men- 
tioned in  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles.  Two  of  his  disciples, 
Athanasius  and  Theodore,  as  was  the  custom  all  through 
the  ages  of  persecution,  obtained  the  dead  body  of  their 
master,  and,  taking  it  in  all  haste  and  secrecy  to  the  port  of 
Joppa,  found  there  a  vessel — a  Phoenician  merchantman,  very 
likely — about  to  set  sail  for  the  west  coast  of  Spain.  The 
ocean  pathway  beyond  the  Straits  of  Gades  were,  as  schol- 
ars are  aware,  well  known  to  the  Phoenician  traders.  So 
they  went  on  their  way  to  the  magnificent  Bay  of  Arosa, 
up  which  they  sailed  to  Iria  Flavia,  then  an  imperial  city  at 
the  head  of  the  bay,  and  connected  by  an  imperial  highway 
with  Braga,  in  Portugal,  another  imperial  city.  The  body 
rested  there  for  a  brief  space,  and  was  then  carried  inland 
some  miles  to  the  site  of  the  present  Compostella,  where  it 
was  buried  in  a  Gallo-Roman  tomb,  probably  that  of  some 
neophyte,  the  inscription  on  it  being  in  mixed  Gaelic  and 

*Eusebius,  the  most  ancient  historian  of  the  Christian  Church,  states 
("Ecclesiastical  History,"  v.  18),  what  is  also  stated  by  the  ancient  author 
of  "The  Preaching  of  Peter,"  quoted  by  Clement  of  Alexandria  in  his 
"Stromata"  (vi  5),  that  it  was  Christ's  express  wish  that  the  apostles 
should  give  the  benefit  of  their  labors  to  the  land  of  Israel  during  twelve 
years  before  they  dispersed  to  prearh  to  all  nations.  The  words  quoted 
by  Clement  of  Alexandria  from  the  Krjpvyi^a  Usrpov  are  the  following: 
"  Wherefore  Peter  says  that  the  Lord  said  to  the  apostles,  '  If  any  one, 
therefore,  is  willing  to  be  led  out  of  Israel  by  penance,  and  on  account  of 
My  name  to  believe  in  God  his  sins  will  be  remitted.  After  twelve  years 
go  forth  into  the  world,  lest  anyone  should  say,  We  have  not  heard.'" 
(The  substance  of  this  note  is  taken  from  "  The  Chair  of  Peter,"  by  Count 
J.  N.  Murphy.) 


558  LIFE  OF  LEO  XUL 

Latin.  Naturally,  Theodore  and  Athanasius  continued  in 
the  district  the  labors  begun  by  the  martyred  son  of  Zebe- 
dee,  and  in  due  time  were  gathered  to  their  rest  and  buried 
by  the  side  of  James  and  in  the  same  crypt.  Then  came 
the  barbarian  invasions,  wave  after  wave,  blotting  out  al- 
most every  vestige  of  Christianity  and  civilization  from  the 
land.  Iria  Flavia  was  blotted  out,  and  the  spot  where  the 
apostle  and  his  disciples  reposed  was  forgotten,  or,  the 
original  Gallo-Roman  population  having  been  swept  away, 
was  unknown  to  the  barbarous  Suevi  who  took  possession 
of  Galicia.  Not  till  about  the  year  818  did  Providence  re- 
call the  attention  of  all  Spain  and  all  Christendom  to  the 
spot  where  the  first  of  the  apostles  to  lay  down  his  life  for 
Christ  had  reposed  for  centuries.  But,  long  before  the  year 
and  date  of  this  rediscovery,  the  fact  of  St.  James  being 
buried  in  Spain  was  mentioned  in  the  Martyrologies  and 
spoken  of  by  Anglo  Saxon  authors  of  note.*  Alfonso 
the  Chaste,  who  was  then  sovereign  of  Galicia,  apprised  by 
Theodemir,  Bishop  of  Iria  Flavia,  of  the  wonderful  dis- 
covery of  the  tomb,  hastened  to  the  spot,  and  took  at  once 
every  measure  to  rebuild  over  the  shrine  a  temple  more 
worthy  of  it  than  the  primitive  Mcmoria  ruined  by  the  bar- 
barians and  shrouded  in  oblivion  by  time.  Around  the 
new  church  grew  the  Compo'stella  of  the  middle  ages, 
which  thenceforth,  in  spite  of  the  fresh  ruin  wrought  by 
the  cruel  but  resistless  Almansor  in  that  same  century,  be- 
came the  most  famous  place  of  pilgrimage  in  Europe, 
eclipsing  for  a  time  Rome  itself.  Calixtus  II.,  while  yet 
Archbishop  of  Vienne,  in  Dauphiri6,  visited  the  shrine  in 
the  beginning  of  the  twelfth  century,  and  gave  a  descrip- 
tion of  the  tomb,  the  church,  the  city,  the  prodigious  con- 
course of  pilgrims  from  every  Christian  land,  the  splendid 
ceremonial,  the  more  splendid  piety  of  the  great  multi- 
tudes, and  the  magnificent  charity  and  hospitality  of  the 
clergy  and  citizens  toward  the  wayfarers. 

Raised  to  the  Papacy,  he  did  all  that  Pope  could  do  to 

*See  the  learned  work  of  Father  Fita  on  the  Shrine  of  Compostella. 


AUTHENTICITY  OF  THE  RELICS.  559 

encourage  and  foster  the  devotion  to  the  shrine  of  St. 
James,  and  this  devotion  continued  to  grow  century  after 
century. 

But,  during  the  reign  of  Elizabeth,  Essex  and  Raleigh 
spread  terror  among  the  fleets  of  Spain.  The  former 
sacked  Cadiz  and  committed  horrible  excesses  in  the 
churches.  His  fleet  ascended  the  Bay  of  Arosa  and  then 
hovered  around  Coruna.  Then  it  was  that  the  Archbishop 
of  Compostella  sent  away  into  the  interior  everything  holy 
and  precious  which  could  be  removed.  Taking  on  himself 
the  task  of  preserving  the  relics  of  St.  James  and  his  two 
disciples  from  the  possibility  of  profanation,  he  descended 
by  night  into  the  crypt,  took  out  the  remains  of  the  three 
apostolic  men  and  buried  them  in  the  centre  of  the  apse,  in 
a  tomb  hastily  and  rudely  constructed,  and  then  obliterated 
all  traces  of  his  handiwork.  His  secret  was  well  kept  and 
died  with  him.  The  terror  of  the  English  fleets  was  like  a 
sword  suspended  over  the  coast  of  Galicia  till  after  the  arch- 
bishop's death.  Meanwhile  all  access  to  the  crypt  had  been 
walled  up,  and  so  remained  till,  a  few  years  ago,  the  present 
cardinal  archbishop  repaired  the  cathedral,  and  resolved, 
with  the  assistance  of  a  mixed  commission  of  ecclesiastics 
and  laymen,  to  ascertain  officially  the  condition  of  the  tomb 
and  its  precious  contents.  The  perquisitions  ended  first  in 
discovering  that  the  tomb  was  empty ;  and  next,  after  the 
most  careful  excavation  and  search  in  every  direction,  in 
coming  upon  the  rude  grave  in  the  apse,  together  with  its 
confused  heap  of  human  bones,  without  a  single  writing  or 
clue  to  enable  the  commission  to  pronounce  as  to  whom 
they  belonged.  Another  sub-commission  of  physicians  and 
scientific  men  was  now  appointed  for  the  purpose  of  exam- 
ining, classifying,  and  identifying  if  possible,  the  fragments 
thus  found. 

They  were  pronounced  to  belong  to  three  different  skele- 
tons— skeletons  of  adult  men,  one  more  aged  than  the 
others,  and  all  in  such  a  condition  and  bearing  such  charac- 
ters as  to  warrant  the  belief  that  they  could  date  some 
eighteen  or  nineteen  centuries  back.  A  portion  of  the  era- 


560  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

nium  of  one  was  wanting,  that  of  the  oldest ;  it  was  the 
mastoid  bone,  or  back  part  of  the  skull,  and  this  had  been 
given  long  before  the  time  of  Essex  as  a  present  to  the  ca- 
thedral of  Pistoia  in  Italy.  This  relic  was  carefully  exam- 
ined, and  its  peculiar  characteristics  were  found  to  conform 
with  the  skull  just  discovered  in  Compostella. 

The  cardinal  archbishop,  a  learned  and  scholarly  man, 
felt  his  way  carefully,  step  by  step,  and  then  submitted  the 
conclusions  which  he  and  his  commissions  had  arrived  at 
to  the  judgment  of  the  Holy  See. 

Leo  XIII.  selected  the  leading  cardinals,  members  of 
the  Congregation  of  Rites,  to  examine  all  the  documents 
transmitted  from  Spain.  After  a  careful  scrutiny  they 
decided  that  some  points  demanded  still  further  elucida- 
tion, and  the  Pope,  desirous,  as  his  predecessors  have  ever 
been  in  such  matters,  to  leave  no  tittle  of  evidence  unsift- 
ed, despatched  to  Compostella  the  Promoter  of  the  Faith, 
Monsignor  Agostino  Caprara,  with  full  powers  to  swear  wit- 
nesses, etc.  He  thoroughly  went  over  the  whole  ground, 
called  around  him  from  Madrid  and  elsewhere  archae- 
ologists, historians,  anatomists,  and  other  scientific  men, 
weighed  on  the  spot  every  fact  and  circumstance,  reconcil- 
ing seeming  contradictions,  clearing  away  doubts,  and  com- 
pleting a  compact  body  of  evidence,  with  documentary 
proofs  all  classified.  With  this  he  returned  to  Rome,  and 
the  cardinals  with  their  consultors  again  began  the  exami- 
nation of  the  whole  matter. 

This  time  they  arrived  at  a  unanimous  conclusion — that 
the  remaining  portions  of  the  three  skeletons  discovered 
and  examined  by  Cardinal  Paya  and  his  commissions  of 
scientists  and  specialists  were  identical  with  the  remains 
revered  in  Compostella  since  the  ninth  century  as  those  of 
St.  James  the  Elder  and  his  two  disciples,  St.  Athanasius 
and  St.  Theodore. 

As  the  last  chapter  of  this  book  is  written  the  Queen 
Regent  of  Spain  has  given  birth  to  a  son,  who  was  proclaim- 
ed under  the  title  of  Alfonso  XIII.  The  queen  besought 


B1R  TH  OF  ALFONSO  XIII.  56  I 

the  Pope  to  be  godfather  to  the  royal  infant,  to  which  His 
Holiness  assented.  It  was  thought  that  the  number  thir- 
teen was  an  unlucky  number ;  but  Sefior  Moret,  the  Minis- 
ter of  Foreign  Affairs,  replied  to  the  objectors  that  if  Al- 
fonso XIII.  were  only  as  great  a  king  as  Leo  XIII.  was  a 
great  Pope,  he  should  consider  him  very  "lucky. 

And  so  the  young  Austrian  princess  has  a  long  and 
difficult  task  before  her,  to  watch  over  the  life  and  fortunes 
of  her  infant  child  till  he  is  of  age  to  grasp  the  sceptre 
which  others  are  now  so  ready  and  eager  to  snatch  from  a 
woman's  hand. 

God  save  Spain  ! 

36 


CHAPTER  XXXIV. 

THE  PRISONER  OF  THE  VATICAN. 

IT  is  the  Feast  of  the  Ascension,  and  there  is  to  be 
a  magnificent  celebration  at  the  basilica  of  St.  John 
Lateran,  the  cathedral  church  of  the  Bishop  of  Rome,  the 
Christian  temple  first  in  rank  in  the  world.  All. Rome  is  to 
be  there  to-day,  all  the  most  distinguished  artists  in  Italy, 
and  the  very  elite  of  her  scholars  are  all  most  anxious  to 
take  part  in  the  solemnities. 

What  extraordinary  circumstance  thus  attracts  to  the 
Lateran  basilica,  at  the  very  extremity  of  the  dustiest  and 
most  desolate  part  of  Rome,  all  the  aristocracy  of  rank 
and  intellect  in  this  most  oppressive  weather?  They  are 
throwing  open  to  the  public  to-day  the  new  apse  of  the 
basilica  reconstructed,  enlarged,  and  decorated  with  fres- 
coes and  mosaics — a  royal  work  undertaken  at  the  com- 
mand and  expense  of  Leo  XIIL,  and  which,  artists  say, 
is  one  of  the  .most  glorious  works  of  restoration  in  the 
world. 

But,  the  reader  will  ask,  is  not  Leo  XIII.  going  to 
officiate  in  person,  in  his  own  cathedral  church,  on  such  an 
occasion  ?  No  ;  the  Pope,  a  prisoner  in  the  Vatican,  will 
never  set  foot  within  the  walls  of  the  Lateran,  never  glad- 
den his  eyes  with  the  sight  of  the  great  work  of  art  due  to 
ihis  munificence. 

Besides,  on  this  day — the  3d  of  May — they  are  celebrat- 
ing in  Rome  the  death  of  Garibaldi,  his  apotheosis,  or  deifi- 
cation, as  the  liberal  journals  call  it.  The  various  revolu- 
tionary clubs  are  in  the  streets  with  flags  and  emblems 
and  garlands,  and  there  are  to  be  grand  processions. 
But  should  Leo  XIII. 's  carriage  appear  in  the  streets,  or 

should  he  by  some  stealthy  way  appear  in   St.  John  Lat- 

562 


THE  VENERABLE  PRISONER  OF  THE  VATICAN.     563 

eran  this  day,  Heaven  only  knows  the  consequences  which 
would  follow. 

No  ;  the  Prisoner  of  the  Vatican  could  not  venture  into 
the  streets  of  Rome — no,  not  even  to  officiate  publicly  in 
the  church  of  St.  Peter's ;  how  much  less  safely  could  he 
pass  through  all  Rome  to  pontificate  in  his  own  cathedral 
or  to  assist  at  the  joyous  celebration  of  to-day  ! 

So  we  shall  go  to  the  Vatican,  and  spend  as  much  as 
we  can  of  this  same  Feast  of  the  Ascension  with  that  vene- 
rable man-  of  seventy-seven,  who  bears  so  courageously  the 
tremendous  weight  of  an  administration  which  knows  not 
its  equal  on  earth. 

Here  we  are  in  the  vast  square  of  St.  Peter's.  The  two 
great  fountains  within  the  opposite  semicircles  of  the  col- 
onnade are  throwing  high  into  the  sultry  morning  air  their 
flashing  waters — the  symbols  of  the  unceasing  light  for  the 
mind  and  strength  for  the  will  which  flow  from  that  Holy 
Spirit  ever  abiding  in  the  Church.  We  can  only  give  a 
passing  glance  at  the  lofty  dome,  glittering  in  the  golden 
radiance  of  the  eastern  sun,  on  the  stately  fagade,  on  the 
middle  of  which  stands  Christ  holding  His  cross,  while  on 
each  side  of  Him,  extending  their  lines  along  the  church 
and  the  mighty  sweep  of  the  encircling  colonnades,  stand 
the  colossal  figures  of  apostles,  patriarchs,  prophets,  martyrs 
— all  glorified  by  the  same  golden  splendors  of  a  June  morn- 
ing in  Rome. 

Our  carriage  makes  the  circuit  of  St.  Peter's  and  lands 
us  in  the  interior  court  of  St.  Damasus.  We  alight,  and,  as 
we  prepare  to  ascend  story  after  story  of  the  magnificent 
marble  staircase  leading  to  the  Pope's  apartments,  we  meet 
our  friend  Monsignor  Macchi,  the  Maestro  di  Camera,  or 
high  chamberlain  to  His  Holiness.  Spare  and  tall,  he 
greets  us,  as  he  does  everybody,  with  the  pleasantest  words, 
and  we  ascend.  The  soldiers  of  the  Swiss  Guard,  with 
their  picturesque  costume  and  mediaeval  halberds,  draw  up 
to  salute  the  high  court  dignitary.  You  will  notice  how 
grand,  how  solid,  how  massive  even,  everything  is  in  these 
stairs  and  corridors.  Up  we  go  again,  another  long  flight  of 


LEO  XIII.  ON  HIS  THRONE,  IN  HIS  PRIVATE  AUDIENCE  ROOM. 
564 


ASSISTING  AT   THE  POPE'S  MASS.  565 

the  same  stately  dimensions.  All  is  vast  in  this  palace  of 
the  Vatican,  where  such  large  hospitality  has  so  often  been 
dispensed  by  the  Popes ;  all  is  magnificent  in  its  elegant 
simplicity.  Was  this  not  built  to  last  for  ever,  as  long  as 
the  peaceful  principality  of  the  Papacy  itself  ?  There  are 
beautiful  frescoes  here  and  there,  which  amateurs  take  leis- 
ure to  examine.  But  we  are  hurrying  to  the  Pope's  early 
Mass  in  his  quiet  private  chapel,  and  so  may  not  tarry  to 
gaze  about  us. 

We  enter  the  Guard-Room — spacious,  lofty,  gorgeously 
frescoed.  The  officers  and  guard  at  once  rise  to  receive 
Monsignor  Macchi,  and  we  are  in  the  ante-room,  quite 
close  to  the  Throne-Room,  the  door  of  which  is  open. 
The  attendants,  in  rich  costumes,  take  our  hats  and  the 
tickets  of  invitation,  and  we  pass  into  the  comparatively 
small  chamber  which  opens  into  the  little  private  oratory. 
It  is  a  great  feast,  and  a  number  of  distinguished  persons 
have  requested  the  honor  of  being  present  at  the  Holy 
Father's  Mass  and  receiving  Communion  from  his  hand. 

Folding-doors  open  out  in  front  of  the  little  altar,  on 
which  everything  is  ready  for  the  celebration  of  the  Holy 
Sacrifice.  The  priestly  vestments  are  laid  on  the  altar  it- 
self, and  the  Missal  stands  open  at  the  Epistle  side.  We 
are  ushered  to  seats  in  the  middle  of  the  room,  where  we 
can  best  see  the  Pope  during  the  celebration.  All  present 
are  absorbed  in  their  devotions  ;  no  one  seems  to  notice 
those  who  enter. 

But  where  is  the  Pope? 

He  is  still  at  his  private  devotions.  This  is  for  him  a 
season  of  unusual  fatigue,  if  one  can  so  speak  of  a  man 
who  never  knows,  from  year's  end  to  year's  end,  any  cessa- 
tion from  overwhelming  labors  and  wasting  cares. 

After  his  long,  weary  days  of  never-ending  occupation 
his  encyclicals,  discourses,  or  letters  have  to  be  written  in 
the  quiet  hours  of  the  night.  And  has  he  not  been  found 
by  his  faithful  old  valet  in  the  morning  with  his  head  on 
his  work-table,  where  sheer  fatigue  had  brought  on  unre- 
freshing  sleep? 


566  LIFE  OF  LEO  XI IT. 

Leo  XIII.  is  an  early  riser.  His  valet  awakes  him  at  a 
stated  and  early  hour.  The  aged  priest  has  not  changed 
the  simple  habits  of  a  lifetime  because  he  is  Pope.  He  is 
soon  dressed  in  his  cassock  of  pure  white,  and  spends  a  few 
moments  in  adoration  at  the  altar  of  his  private  chapel. 
Then  there  is  a  half-hour  spent  in  meditation  or  mental 
prayer  on  some  of  the  great  Gospel  truths  or  mysteries. 
This  over,  one  of  his  chaplains  recites  with  him  Prime, 
Tierce,  and  Sext — the  three  first  morning  "  Hours"  of  the 
canonical  office — and  the  Holy  Father  is  ready  for  Mass. 

Around  his  private  apartments,  meanwhile,  all  is  silence. 
The  weaned  spirit  of  him  who  is  Vicar  of  Christ  soars  aloft 
to  the  throne  of  grace,  to  meditate  there  in  the  divine  light 
on  his  own  needs  and  the  needs  of  his  wide-spread  flock. 
Prayer  is  to  him  a  bath  of  life,  from  which  he  comes  forth 
refreshed  and  strengthened  for  the  day's  labor  before  him. 
But  prayer  is  also  a  preparation  for  the  great  priestly  rite 
which  is  and  ever  has  been  Leo  XIII.'s  supreme  comfort — 
the  Mass. 

We  were  also  thinking  of  The  Presence  on  yonder  lighted 
altar,  when  there  was  a  slight  commotion  in  the  chapel. 
All  of  a  sudden  every  one  had  knelt  as  if  moved,  by  some 
common  electric  impulse.  A  white  figure  stands  before 
the  altar,  with  his  face  turned  to  us  and  the  right  hand 
holding  a  silver  aspersory  sprinkling  holy  water  on  the  as- 
sembled worshippers.  It  is  but  an  instant  that  he  remains 
fronting  us.  The  face  is  of  alabaster  whiteness,  and  trans- 
parent almost,  and  the  eyes  are  all-radiant  with  the  fire  of 
piety  and  fatherly  kindness.  The  words  of  blessing  were 
scarcely  audible.  It  was  as  if  some  of  Fra  Angelico's  glori- 
fied saints  had  walked  out  of  the  canvas  or  come  down 
from  the  frescoes  on  the  wall  and  shone  upon  us  a  moment, 
lifted  his  hand  in  blessing,  murmured  low  words  of  love  and 
greeting,  and  then  turned  away. 

Leo  XIII.  then  genuflected  before  the  altar  and  retired 
a  little  to  our  left,  but  out  of  sight,  to  read  with  his  chap- 
lain the  psalms  and  prayers  before  Mass.  There  is  in  the 
Pope's  pronunciation  of  the  Latin  something  uncommonly 


POPE  LEO  XIII.  CELEBRA  TING  THE  DIVINE  OFFICE.     567 

sweet  and  distinct.  His  utterance  is  slow  and  measured. 
Every  word  is  given  out  as  if  the  speaker  were  weighing  its 
deepest  sense  and  enjoying  it.  No  man  I  ever  saw  at  the 
altar  so  impressed  me  with  the  idea  of  one  who  is  face  to 
face  with  God  and  uttering  every  word  with  infinite  reve- 
rence and  feeling.  The  first  Psalm  he  read  is  the  eighty- 
third  :  "  How  lovely  are  Thy  tabernacles,  O  Lord  of 
Hosts !  My  soul  longeth  and  fainteth  for  the  courts  of 
the  Lord."  Every  now  and  then  some  verse  in  the  Psalms 
moved  him  more  powerfully,  and  his  deep,  grave  voice 
sounded  more  clearly :  "  Wilt  Thou  be  angry  with  us  for 
ever?  or  wilt  Thou  extend  Thy  wrath  from  generation  to 
generation  ?  "  Or  again  :  "  Surely  His  salvation  is  near  to 
them  that  fear  Him,  that  glory  may  dwell  in  our  land." 

Psalm  after  Psalm  is  thus  recited.  Is  there  not  a  quiver 
in  the  aged  voice  ?  "  Have  mercy  on  me,  O  Lord ;  for  I 
have  cried  to  Thee  all  the  day.  .  .  .  For  Thou,  O  Lord,  art 
sweet  and  mild ;  and  plenteous  in  mercy  to  those  that  call 
upon  Thee." 

When  he  came  to  recite  alone  the  beautiful  series  of 
prayers  after  the  preparatory  Psalms  the  silence  in  the 
chapel  was  painful.  It  was  as  if  every  heart  there  held  its 
own  pulsations  to  throb  in  that  of  the  great  High-Priest  of 
the  Church  pleading  before  the  mercy-seat. 

"  Bend  down  to  our  prayers,  O  God  of  infinite  mildness, 
the  ears  of  Thy  fatherly  love,  and  enlighten  our  hearts  with 
the  grace  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  that  we  may  deserve  worthily 
to  minister  at  Thy  mysteries  and  to  love  Thee  with  charity 
everlasting.  .  .  .  Oh !  we  beseech  Thee,  O  Lord,  visit  and 
purify  our  consciences,  that  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  on  com- 
ing to  us  may  find  there  a  dwelling  prepared  for  Him." 

And  now  the  slender  white  form  is  again  before  the 
altar ;  he  kneels  a  moment,  rises,  and  stands  ready  to  be 
vested.  Everything  is  done  so  quietly,  so  reverently,  that 
you  look  on  as  if  entranced.  His  chaplains  assist  him, 
evidently  feeble  and  seemingly  fragile  as  he  is,  with  a  re- 
spect all  mingled  with  tenderness. 

At  last  he  is  vested  and  begins   the    Mass.     As  Leo 


568  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

XIII.  stands  before  us  in  his  full  priestly  vestments,  it  is 
painfully  apparent  how  aged  is  that  frame  on  which  rests 
the  awful  burden  of  such  responsibility,  care,  and  toil. 
The  shoulders  and  head  are  slightly  bent,  as  if  in  reve- 
rence to  the  tabernacle.  Beneath  the  white  skull-cap,  or 
berretta,  is  a  circle  of  the  snow-white  hair.  Every  tone  of 
the  priestly  voice  is  now  fuller,  more  measured,  and  in- 
stinct with  deeper  feeling. 

"  I  will  go  unto  the  altar  of  God,  to  God  who  giveth 
joy  to  my  youth.  .  .  .  Judge  me,  O  God  !  and  distinguish 
my  cause  from  the  nation  that  is  not  holy;  from  the  unjust 
and  deceitful  man  deliver  me.  .  .  .  Send  forth.  Thy  light 
and  Thy  truth  ;  they  have  conducted  me  and  brought 
me  to  Thy  holy  mount  and  into  Thy  tabernacles.  ...  I 
will  praise  Thee  on  the  harp,  O  God,  my  God  !  Why  art 
thou  sad,  O  my  soul !  and  why  dost  thou  disquiet  me?" 

Then  came  the  Confession,  and,  as  the  aged  form  bent 
lowly  before  the  Presence  there,  every  word  seemed  to 
shake  it  with  emotion.  He  is,  in  truth,  standing  before  the 
heavenly  court  on  high,  and  suing  for  forgiveness  to  that 
Awful  Majesty,  surrounded  by  the  angelic  and  the  saintly 
multitudes.  "  I  have  sinned  grievously,  through  my  fault, 
through  my  fault,  through  my  exceeding  great  fault." 

It  is  the  feast  of  the  Ascension  of  our  Lord  into  heaven. 
The  Mass  is  one  of  triumphant  joyousness.  The  priest  at 
the  altar  is  made  to  stand  with  the  apostles  and  disciples 
on  Mount  Olivet  watching  the  form  of  the  risen  Saviour 
ascending  slowly  beyond  our  sphere  :  "  Ye  men  of  Galilee, 
why  stand  you  looking  up  to  heaven  ?  " 

But  the  eyes  of  faith  follow  Him  beyond  the  veil  and 
to  where  He  sits  enthroned  at  the  right  hand  of  the  Father. 
Leo  XIII.  has  but  a  step  to  make  to  pass  behind  the  veil. 
His  heart  has  long  been  there.  He  recites  the  angelic 
hymn,  the  "  Glory  be  to  God  on  high  ! "  as  if  he  had  al- 
ready joined  the  exultant  throng  of  blessed  spirits. 

"  We  praise  Tlicc !  We  bless  Thee !  We  adore  Thee ! 
We  give  Thee  thanks  for  Thy  great  glory,  O  Lord  God, 
Heavenly  King,  God  the  Father  Almighty." 


LEO  XIII.  ADMINISTERING  HOLY  COMMUNION.      569 

One  who  has  written  of  Leo  XIII.  the  most  unkind  and 
undutiful  things  ever  put  in  print  about  him  has  also  re- 
corded that  it  is  impossible  to  be  present  while  he  cele- 
brates Mass  without  feeling  that  this  man  is  nearer  to  God 
than  any  one  else,  and  speaks  to  Him  in  a  tone  of  deeper 
reverence,  love,  and  adoration. 

We,  who  have  spent  within  a  few  years  of  half  a  cen- 
tury in  priestly  ministrations,  are  bound  to  say  that  nothing 
«ver  so  powerfully  moved  our  soul  as  to  see  Leo  XIII. 
at  Christ's  altar,  his  whole  soul  lifted  up  as  if  the  Beatific 
Vision  held  it  and  made  it  plead  there  and  supplicate  with 
great  heart-cries  for  the  Church  whose  dangers,  trials,  and 
needs  are  his  especial  care. 

The  holy  rite  occasionally  seems  to  be  too  much  for 
him.  His  frame  is  so  shaken  that  you  fancy  he  will  fall  if 
not  supported  by  his  chaplains.  But  the  strong  will  sus- 
tains him,  and  during  the  Canon  and  after  the  Consecra- 
tion there  is  a  continual  upward  movement  of  head  and 
shoulders,  as  if  caused  by  a  weight  too  heavy  to  carry. 

One  could  have  wished  that  a  person  apparently  so 
feeble  and  so  overworked  as  the  Holy  Father  should  not 
have  to  give  Communion  to  the  large  numbers  of  strangers 
and  pilgrims  who  are  occasionally  admitted  as  a  great  favor 
to  hear  the  Pope's  Mass.  But  that  is  the  supreme  consola- 
tion of  Catholics,  to  receive  Christ's  divinest  gift  from  his 
hand  who  is  Vicar  to  the  Giver. 

All  approach  in  turn  without  the  slightest  confusion  or 
embarrassment.  It  is  a  very  touching  sight.  Leo  XIII. 
pronounces  the  sacramental  words  with  extraordinary  em- 
phasis and  sweetness  as  each  one  kneels  before  him.  He 
presents  his  hand,  which  holds  the  sacred  Host,  to  be  kissed 
by  the  communicant  before  placing  the  Bread  of  Life  on 
the  tongue.  Is  it  not  right  ?  He  represents  the  God  "  who 
openeth  His  hand  and  filleth  every  living  soul  with  bless- 
ing "  ;  we  kiss  in  his  the  Hand  which  bestows  on  us  in 
Communion  the  pledge  of  the  life  eternal. 

At  length  the  Mass  is  over,  and  the  Pope  and  all  pre- 
sent have  heard  a  second  Mass  of  thanksgiving.  When  the 


570 


LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 


priest  has  withdrawn  from  the  altar  commences  a  scene  such 
as  can  only  be  beheld  in  Rome,  in  the  home  of  the  Com- 
mon Parent  of  Christendom,  and  at  the  foot  of  the  very 
altar  where  the  High-Priest  of  our  faith  has  just  broken  to 
his  children  the  Bread  of  life  eternal. 

They  bring  an  arm-chair  to  the  Epistle  side,  and  the 
Holy  Father  is  seated,  and  all  present  come  once  more  in 
succession  to  kneel  at  his  feet,  whose  very  face  and  air  and 
all  about  him  remind  you  of  Christ  the  Lord  receiving  lit- 
tle children  and  their  parents.  Family  groups  are  intro- 
duced together  by  good  Monsignor  Macchi,  who  whispers 
to  the  Holy  Father  who  they  are  and  whence  they  come. 
It  is  a  sight  never  to  be  forgotten,  so  full  of  that  light  of 
charity  which  is  the  light  of  Heaven. 

How  radiant  these  sweet,  spiritualized  features  are  with 
fatherly  interest  and  kindness !  Here  are  parents  who 
have  brought  from  afar,  from  the  ends  of  the  earth,  their 
little  girl  to  receive  her  First  Communion  from  the  hand 
which  is  now  laid  in  blessing  on  the  child's  head.  Can  she 
ever  forget  these  wonderful  eyes  bent  on  her,  and  the  great 
fatherly  soul  looking  out  from  behind  that  transparent  face, 
and  the  sweet  words  of  blessing  he  utters  ?  No  wonder 
children  are  so  drawn  to  Leo  XIII.  And  why,  oh  !  why 
can  he  not  go  out  into  the  streets  of  Rome  ?  Why  cannot 
that  great  father  go  and  collect  these  little  ones  around 
him,  and  by  his  words,  his  blessing,  his  very  air,  and  the 
virtue  which  goes  forth  from  him,  draw  these  innocents 
and  bind  them  for  ever  to  Christ  ? 

Parents  and  children  have  gone  away  with  their  eyes 
full  of  tears  of  joy  and  their  hearts  full  of  reverence.  Then 
other  groups  come  in  turn — the  afflicted,  the  tried ;  gene- 
ral officers,  Frenchmen  among  them,  bronzed  in  distant 
climes  and  by  long  service,  but  soldiers  of  Christ  as  well. 
How  Leo  XIII.  knows  to  say  brave  words  to  these  noble 
professors  of  the  faith !  And  how  reverently  they  kiss  that 
fatherly  hand  extended  to  them  or  the  embroidered  slip- 
per on  his  feet  who  has  borne  the  words  of  the  Gospel  of 
Peace  over  the  mountains  and  the  seas  to  the  remotest 


DAIL  Y  LIFE  OF  POPE  LEO  XIII.  5  7 1 

tribes  !  But  Leo  XIII.  seldom  gives  you  an  opportunity 
to  bend  down  and  kiss  his  feet  at  these  morning  receptions 
in  the  holy  place.  And  then  there  are  journalists  and  other 
soldiers  of  the  truth  for  whom  Leo  XIII.  has  an  especial 
regard.  These  are  the  men  on  whom  he  relies  in  the  great 
battle  with  popular  error  and  prejudice.  Be  sure  that  his 
first  and  last  recommendation  to  such  will  be  charity — cha- 
rity in  all  things.  For  why  should  truth  triumph,  if  not  to 
make  charity  reign  among  men  ? 

Here  is  our  turn.  Do  not  be  afraid  or  ashamed  to  kneel 
to  that  venerable  man,  even  though  you  be  not  a  Catholic. 
His  blessing,  the  blessing  of  one  who  has  battled  so  long 
for  Christ  and  who  has  held  His  banner  aloft  in  the  eyes  of 
the  nations,  will  bring  you  nothing  but  good.  And  as  you 
look  into  those  love-lit  eyes  and  watch  the  ineffably  sweet 
smile  around  that  mouth,  do  you  not  think  that  somewhat 
of  a  warmer  love,  a  deeper  interest  goes  out  to  you,  pre- 
cisely because  you  are  not  one  of  his  flock,  although  he 
deems  you  one  of  his  children  ? 

And  now  we  are  invited  to  be  a  little  longer  with  the 
Holy  Father.  Is  he  not  too  fatigued?  does  he  not  wish 
to  be  left  alone  awhile  ?  No.  He  is  going  to  take  his  morn- 
ing refection  before  beginning  his  terrible  round  of  official 
labors.  Quite  near  the  little  chapel  is  the  Pope's  breakfast- 
room.  It  is  simple  enough  in  all  conscience.  And  what  is 
this  breakfast  ?  A  cup  of  black  coffee  with  a  small  roll  of 
bread.  Nothing  more. 

And  now  the  breakfast  is  ended  and  the  Pope  withdraws 
to  his  private  study,  where  his  enormous  correspondence 
and  his  secretaries  are  waiting  for  him. 

Every  day  in  the  week  and  every  hour  in  each  day  has 
its  own  appointed  labor.  The  congregations  or  standing 
committees  of  cardinals,  among  whom  are  divided  all  the 
matters  connected  with  the  vast  administration  of  a  Church 
numbering  200,000,000,  report  regularly  to  the  Holy  Father. 
Some  of  them  have  the  Pope  for  president  and  hold  their 
sittings  in  his  presence.  The  Propaganda  has  now  two  dis- 
tinct sections,  one  of  which  has  the  same  superintendence 


572  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

over  the  missions  and  spiritual  interests  of  the  Eastern  na- 
tions that  the  Propaganda  proper  has  of  all  other  mission- 
ary countries.  Its  multiplicity  of  affairs  would  be  alone 
sufficient  to  occupy  a  host  of  active  and  devoted  men. 

Here  is  another  new  office  which  the  circumstances  of 
the  times  in  Italy  have  compelled  the  Holy  Father  to  cre- 
ate. At  its  head  is  Monsignor  Gabriel  Boccali,  one  of  the 
men  whom  Leo  XIII.  reared  and  trained  in  Perugia  to  be 
bright  lights  in  God's  Church.  He  is  Uditor  di  Sna  San- 
tith — auditor  or  judge  in  the  Pope's  own  palace.  The  Holy 
Father  has  unbounded  confidence  in  him,  for  he  knows  him 
well.  Young,  pious,  devoted  to  his  duty,  learned  beyond 
his  years,  he  is  sure  to  rise  to  the  highest  eminence.  But 
he  will  ever  be  the  true  priest  and  servant  of  the  Church. 

The  special  relations  of  the  bishops  of  Italy  to  the  Holy 
See  in  presence  of  the  Italian  government,  and  the  need 
they  have  of  the  Holy  Father's  support,  together  with  the 
necessity  of  choosing  the  very  best  and  safest  men  for 
Italian  bishoprics,  have  imposed  on  him  a  heavy  load  of 
anxiety.  It  is  on  such  men  as  Monsignor  Boccali  that  he 
puts  a  part  of  the  labor  which  this  peculiar  position  im- 
poses. 

Innumerable  congregations  and  commissions  besides 
have  their  special  work  to  do,  and  to  report  regularly. 
And  Leo  XIII.  is  not  one  with  whom  it  is  safe  to  be  un- 
punctual,  or  irregular,  or  inexact,  or  slovenly  in  any  way. 
Great  as  is  his  mind,  and  high  as  -it  soars  in  his  doctrinal 
expositions  or  his  masterly  surveys  of  social  conditions,  po- 
litical exigencies,  or  the  relative  positions  and  tendencies 
of  philosophical  systems,  his  is  also  an  eminently  practical 
mind,  to  which  the  minutest  details  are  grateful.  Nay, 
sometimes  people  are  surprised  to  find  that  the  Holy  Fa- 
ther, whose  solicitude  extends  to  every  diocese  and  mission 
on  the  surface  of  the  globe,  will  be  familiar  with  the  small- 
est particulars  of  administration  and  insist  on  the  minutest 
exactness  from  all  who  report  to  him.  His  memory  and  his 
all-grasping  intellect  seem  to  be  equal  to  the  most  astound- 
ing labor. 


o*— •  •        «X^7  .        tx'fcx 

i'*^/r    x/ fc*->>-»-  A  <A  ./Cv- 


MUL  TIPLICITY  OF  THE  HOL  Y  FA  THER'S  LABORS.     573 

On  all  these  weighty,  intricate,  perplexing  matters  which 
every  congregation,  every  commission  treats,  his  judgment 
has  always  to  be  given.  And  it  is  always  a  deliberate  and 
enlightened  judgment. 

The  Cardinal  Vicar,  Parocchi,  for  instance,  every  Satur- 
day evening  has  his  special  audience  to  report  on  the  af- 
fairs of  the  diocese  of  Rome  for  the  week  last  past.  Every 
detail  of  administration  is  gone  into.  Primary,  Secondary 
Schools,  the  Seminario  Romano  with  its  Institute  of  High 
Literature,  the  various  confraternities,  the  parochial  work 
in  all  the  churches,  and  many  other  weighty  matters  are  to 
the  Holy  Father,  as  Bishop  of  Rome,  things  of  absorbing 
interest.  Even  with  one  so  zealous,  so  entirely  devoted,  so 
experienced,  and  so  gifted  as  Cardinal  Parocchi,  Leo  XIII.'s 
conscience  will  not  be  at  rest  till  he  has  known  and  judged 
for  himself  on  the  ensemble  and  the  details. 

We  could  mention  the  Congregation  of  Studies,  the 
Commission  of  Historical  Studies,  and  other  bodies  which 
co-operate  with  the  Holy  Father  in  keeping  high  and  rais- 
ing ever  higher  the  level  of  science  in  the  great  schools  of 
Rome  and  Italy ;  all  these  have  to  report  regularly.  And 
it  can  easily  be  imagined  i/  one  of  Leo  XIII.'s  intellectual 
tastes  and  culture  will  dismiss  the  cardinals  who  report  to 
him  with  a  few  brief  words  or  be  satisfied  with  a  perfunc- 
tory examination. 

Perfunctory  Leo  XIII.  is  in  nothing.  He  is  thorough, 
and  thoroughly  in  earnest,  in  all  that  pertains  to  the  work 
of  his  subordinates  or  his  own. 

And  then  there  is  the  Cardinal  Secretary  of  State  and 
the  terribly  difficult  and  incredibly  delicate  work  of  dealing 
with  the  foreign  governments.  Look  over  the  entire  politi- 
cal and  diplomatic  field,  and  think  of  the  hard  and  long 
battles  the  Holy  See  has  to  fight,  not  only  with  non-Catholic 
courts  but  with  those  that  we  call  Catholic.  All  this  is  a 
matter  of  daily,  sometimes  of  hourly,  concern  and  labor  for 
the  Holy  Father. 

He  has  to  receive  ambassadors,  archbishops,  bishops, 
pilgrims,  deputations,  addresses  from  the  numerous  Catholic 


5  74  LIFE  OF  LEO  xin- 

unions  and  committees,  and  from  Catholic  congresses.  All 
this  is  a  part  of  the  working  of  the  living  organism  of  Cath- 
olicity. But  it  is  as  uninterrupted  as  the  circulation  of  the 
blood  in  the  frame. 

Go  by  permission,  about  ten  or  eleven  o'clock  in  the 
morning  on  the  days  when  the  Holy  Father  receives,  and 
sit  in  the  Throne-Room  for  the  two  hours  before  noon  dur- 
ing which  audience  after  audience  is  given.  You  look  at 
Monsignor  Macchi's  spare  and  spent  figure,  and  you  wonder 
when  this  good  prelate  finds  rest.  He  seems  to  be  ever  on 
foot.  But  his  graceful  courtesy  knows  no  change.  You 
look  at  the  Pontiffs  own  face  and  form,  and  wonder  how 
the  lamp  of  life  is  fed  or  does  not  go  out  in  such  a  frail 
vessel. 

But  only  think  of  the  work  that  one  man  has  to  go 
through ! 

At  noon  the  Pope  retires  for  a  walk  in  the  gardens  of 
the  Vatican  during  the  cool  season.  In  summer  this  out- 
door recreation  is  perforce  put  off  till  evening.  But  there 
are  the  evening  audiences,  too,  which  are  the  most  numer- 
ous, the  longest,  and  the  most  wearing.  Then  it  is  that 
bishops  are  received  to  report  on  the  state  of  their  dioceses, 
and  that  priests  who  come  with  them  are  granted  the  favor 
of  an  audience. 

There  are  certain  occasions  when  strangers  are  so  nu- 
merous that  private  audiences  are  out  of  the  question. 
Then  a  day  is  fixed  when  they  are  admitted  by  a  ticket 
from  Monsignor  Macchi  to  one  of  the  great  halls  in  the 
Vatican,  and  the  Holy  Father  passes  through  their  ranks, 
blessing  them  and  saying  some  kind  words  in  French  and 
Italian. 

But  in  times  of  pilgrimage  and  jubilee,  as  will  be  1887, 
the  year  of  the  Pope's  Golden  Jubilee,  the  whole  Catholic 
world  sends  its  bands  of  pilgrims  from  every  land  to  pay 
their  homage  of  love  to  the  Vicar  of  Christ,  and  the  stream 
of  visitors  to  the  Vatican  seems  never  to  end. 

But  what  a  consolation  to  such  a  fatherly  heart  as  that 
of  Pius  IX.  or  Leo  XIII.,  so  tried  by  the  persecutions  of 


PRIVATE  LIFE  OF  POPE  LEO.  575 

the  Church  and  the  forced  captivity  they  endure,  to  see  this 
unending  procession  of  nations  and  peoples  coming  and 
going  through  the  halls  of  the  Vatican,  around  the  seat 
of  the  Common  Father  and  the  Tomb  of  the  holy  Apos- 
tles! 

Where  has  there  ever  been  seen  anything  like  what 
Rome  saw  in  1877,  and  what  it  will  again  see  in  1887  when 
the  whole  Christian  world  will  pour  forth  at  the  feet  of  Leo 
XIII.  the  expression  of  its  reverence,  love,  and  fealty? 
But  think,  too,  of  the  addition  to  the  ordinary  labors  which 
have  to  be  gone  through,  no  matter  what  throngs  may  flock 
to  the  Vatican  or  come  and  go  through  the  glorious  temple 
alongside. 

When,  then,  does  Leo  XIII.  find  time  for  his  ordinary 
meals  ?  They  are  solitary  and  frugal  meals.  Look  at  his 
face  and  see  if  there  are  there  any  signs  of  indulgence  of 
any  kind.  The  simplest  food,  a  little  wine  and  water — the 
beverage  of  all  Italians — a  little  fruit,  such  is  Leo  XIII. 's 
ordinary  morning  fare.  At  night  the  repast  is  also  frugal. 

The  Breviary  Office  is  recited  with  one  of  his  chaplains. 
The  utter  weariness  begotten  by  the  terrible  round  of  of- 
ficial duties  is  lightened  or  dispelled  by  the  pleasure  the 
Pope  finds  in  prayer,  in  the  recitation  of  the  inspired 
Psalms  of  "  the  Sweet  Singer  of  Israel,"  in  the  lessons  of 
Holy  Scripture  and  the  brief  record  of  the  life  of  the  saint 
of  the  day. 

After  examination  of  conscience  and  night  prayers  the 
aged  Pope  is  supposed  to  retire  and  to  rest.  His  room  is 
but  simply,  scantily  furnished  ;  and  his  rest,  when  not  bro- 
ken in  upon,  is  barely  sufficient  to  restore  the  forces  of  ex- 
hausted nature.  And  he  is  an  early  riser.  His  habits,  as 
we  have  said  elsewhere,  are  those  of  an  ascetic.  But  does 
he  never  break  in  upon  his  rest  ?  Too  frequently,  they  say. 

His  magnificent  encyclicals  ;  his  consistorial  allocutions ; 
his  addresses  to  pilgrims,  deputations,  and  societies  ;  his 
most  important  bulls  or  constitutions,  like  those  on  the 
restoration  of  the  Scotch  hierarchy,  on  the  settlement  of 
the  difficulties  in  England  between  the  bishops  and  the 


5  76  LIFE  OF  LEO  XIII. 

regulars,  are  written  or  corrected  or  finished  in  the  quiet 
of  the  night,  when  all  in  the  Vatican  enjoy  much-needed 
repose. 

But  the  white-robed  figure,  so  much  like  a  supernatural 
apparition,  watches,  works,  prays  alone  in  the  stillness. 
He  bears  the  burden  of  a  whole  world.  His  soul  is  sad 
with  the  sorrows,  trials,  sufferings  of  the  nations. 

The  lamp  in  the  Pope's  room  in  the  Vatican,  shining  at 
night  when  all  around  is  darkness,  gives  forth  the  Lumen 
in  Coelo,  that  supernal  light  which  even  now  illuminates 
both  hemispheres.  No  such  light,  since  St.  Peter's  teach- 
ing and  virtues  shone  in  that  very  spot,  confounding  and  ap- 
palling the  licentious  and  cruel  Nero,  ever  shed  its  splen- 
dors on  the  world  from  the  Seven  Hills  of  Rome. 


APPENDIXES. 


577 


37 


APPKNDIXKS. 


APPENDIX  A. 

THE  Roman  universities,  like  those  of  Bologna,  Paris,  Oxford,  etc., 
were  a  union,  chartered  by  both  the  ecclesiastical  and  the  civil  authorities, 
and  teaching  all  the  branches  or  sciences  needful  to  the  great  liberal  pro- 
fessions of  theology,  law,  and  medicine.  They  did  more  than  this,  how- 
ever ;  for  they  deserved  their  appellation  of  "  university"  by  teaching  all 
that  was  worth  learning  in  human  and  divine  knowledge — universitas  scien- 
tiarum  et  artium. 

This  will  be  fully  seen  and  understood  from  a  brief  sketch  of  the 
University  of  Sapienza  as  it  existed  under  the  fatherly  and  generous  gov- 
ernment of  the  Popes.  It  was  founded  by  Boniface  VIII.  in  1303,  a  Pope 
who,  whatever  be  his  supposed  or  real  demerits,  certainly  had  the  merit  of 
being  both  a  scholar  and  a  most  enlightened  promoter  of  the  highest  scho- 
larship. Besides  the  Sapienza,  which  still  remains  as  a  national  monu- 
ment to  his  liberal  genius,  the  traveller  will  be  shown,  in  the  museum  of 
the  old  University  of  Bologna,  a  statue  in  hammered  bronze  plates  erect- 
ed to  him  by  the  Bolognese  professors  and  people  in  grateful  testimony  of 
his  protection  of  their  rights. 

The  Roman  university  lived  on  through  the  disastrous  years  of  the 
Papal  exile  at  Avignon,  as  well  as  through  the  vicissitudes  of  the  great 
schism.  It  was  then  enlarged  by  Eugenius  IV.  (Colonna),  Nicholas  V., 
and  by  the  clever  Spaniard,  Alexander  VI.  The  great  Franciscan  monk, 
Sixtus  V.,  bestowed  on  it  much  care  and  liberality,  and  from  his  time,  as 
is  related  in  the  text,  it  began  to  be  called  the  Sapienza.  His  immediate 
successors  continued  this  munificent  protection.  Leo  X.  reformed  its 
constitution  and  organization,  gave  it  new  statutes,  appointed  handsome 
salaries  for  the  professors,  erected  the  university  chapel,  and  endowed  two 
chaplaincies  for  its  service.  Gregory  XIII.,  the  Bolognese  Ugo  Buon- 
compagni,  encouraged  still  further  higher  studies  by  granting  to  all  stu- 
dents taking  out  the  degree  of  doctor  a  life  annuity  of  twenty-five  crowns. 
Sixtus  V.  did  far  more,  enlarging,  repairing,  beautifying  the  university 
buildings,  and  creating  a  congregation  or  standing  committee  of  cardinals 
to  superintend  its  teaching  as  well  as  all  studies  in  the  Roman  schools. 
Alexander  VII.  completed  it,  as  the  inscription  in  front  of  the  church 
testifies. 

To  name  the  Pontiffs  who  added  to  its  efficiency,  enlarged  the  sphere 

579 


580  A  PPENDJXES. 

of  science  within  it,  or  enriched  by  princely  contributions  some  one  or 
several  of  the  university  departments  would  be  tedious.  One  would  really 
seem  to  be  sketching,  in  so  doing,  the  progress  of  every  one  almost  of  those 
sciences  of  which  the  nineteenth  century  is  as  proud  as  if  they  had  been 
unknown  to  preceding  ages. 

Innocent  XI.,  while  persecuted  and  oppressed  by  Louis  XIV  ,  found- 
ed the  Theatre  of  Anatomy  at  the  instigation  of  the  celebrated  anatomist 
Lancisius.  Clement  XI.  made  splendid  additions  to  the  library.  Bene- 
dict XIV.  decreed  that  the  professorial  chairs  should  only  be  obtained  by 
a  public  concursus.  He  also  made  ample  provisions  for  the  chairs  of  ma- 
thematics, physics,  and  chemistry,  and  provided  theatres  for  experimental 
physics  and  anatomy,  with  suitable  apparatus.  Later  Pontiffs  added  other 
chairs  according  as  the  progress  of  science  or  the  needs  of  the  age  de- 
manded. 

The  French  under  Bonaparte  closed  all  these  schools,  as  they  had 
done  to  the  schools  of  Milan,  Bologna,  Pavia,  and  other  Italian  cities. 
Restored  by  Pius  VII.  and  then  suppressed,  the  Sapienza  was  once  more 
reopened  on  his  restoration  in  1814. 

But  the  greatest  benefactor  of  this  university  was  Leo  XII.,  who,  as 
above  stated,  renovated  this  establishment  and  all  the  other  educational 
establishments  in  Rome  and  the  Papal  States.  Five  colleges  composed 
the  Sapienza  or  Roman  University — those  of  theology,  philosophy,  law, 
medicine,  and  philology. 

"The  academical  year,"  says  Dr.  Donovan,  "commences  on  Novem- 
ber 5  and  ends  on  June  27,  during  which  interval  gratuitous  lectures  are 
given  in  Latin,  Greek,  Hebrew,  Arabic,  Syriac,  and  Chaldaic  ;  in  botany, 
chemistry,  natural  history,  anatomy,  physiology,  pathology,  pharmacy,  and 
surgery;  in  algebra,  geometry,  physics,  mechanics,  hydraulics,  optics, 
astronomy,  mineralogy,  and  archaeology  ;  in  sacred  eloquence,  dogmatic 
theology,  and  Sacred  Scripture  ;  in  the  law  of  nature,  the  law  of  nations, 
canon,  civil,  and  criminal  law.  The  schools  of  the  Academy  of  St.  Luke 
are  also  attached  to  the  university,  forming  part  of  the  edifice,  and  in  them 
the  pupils  are  gratuitously  taught  painting,  sculpture,  architecture,  geome- 
try, perspective,  optics,  anatomy,  history,  mythology,  etc.,  by  eleven  pro- 
fessors, forming  a  distinct  establishment,  under  the  direction  of  a  presi- 
dent. Pius  VII.  instituted  a  school  of  engineering,  which  was  remodelled 
by  Leo  XII.  The  number  of  students  .  .  .  generally  exceeds  one  thou- 
sand.''* 

Besides  the  University  of  the  Sapienza  there  was  the  Roman  College, 
or  Gregorian  University,  still  more  numerously  attended,  the  various  na- 
tional colleges  sending  their  pupils  to  its  schools.  Then  there  was  the 
Propaganda,  a  university  in  itself  and  the  great  nursery  for  heathen  and 
non-Catholic  countries. 

All  these  great  schools  were  endowed  with  more  than  princely  magni- 
ficence by  the  successors  of  the  Fisherman,  whose  object  was  to  make  all 

*  "  Rome,  Ancient  and  Modern,"  by  Rev.  J.  Donovan,  D.D.,  vol.  ill.  c.  11. 


A  PPENDIXES.  5  8 1 

sciences  the  handmaids  of  religion,  the  zealous  servants  of  the  God  of  all 
knowledge.  Museums,  libraries,  collections  of  all  the  rarest  monuments 
of  ancient  and  modern  art,  were  at  the  disposition  of  students  and  pro- 
fessors— all  these  rare  treasures  and  scientific  apparatus  receiving  con- 
tinual additions  from  each  reigning  Pontiff  and  the  cardinals  and  other 
prelates,  who  emulated  the  enlightened  zeal  of  the  popes. 

Thus  was  Rome  made  the  intellectual  as  well  as  the  religious  head  of 
the  civilized  world,  the  limited  revenues  of  the  Popes  permitting  them  to 
foster  all  the  arts  of  peace,  while  their  people,  without  a  great  standing 
army  or  navy,  knew  nothing  of  the  load  of  taxation  which  at  present  ren- 
ders their  lot  well-nigh  intolerable. 

The  University  of  Sapienza,  like  all  the  schools  of  Rome,  continued 
to  be  fostered  and  developed  by  Gregory  XVI.  and  Pius  IX.  till  the  Pied- 
montese  occupation  of  Rome  superseded  the  authority  of  the  Holy  Father, 
to  the  great  detriment  of  education  as  well  as  of  literary  and  scientific 
progress. 

APPENDIX  B. 

Among  those  who  contended  for  this  premium  was  the  Rev.  Tobias 
Kirby,  D.  D.,  a  young  Irish  priest,  who  had  come  to  Rome  in  829  and  has 
lived  there  ever  since.  Of  course  he  lost  the  prize,  although  his  disserta- 
tion on  the  same  subject,  printed  at  the  request  of  Leo  XIII.,  and  now 
before  us,  is  a  most  creditable  performance. 

"  I  was  not  personally  acquainted  with  Monsignor  Pecci  at  the  time." 
said  to  us  the  other  day  this  venerable  prelate,  now  Ardhbishop  of  Ephe- 
sus,  "and  did  not  make  his  acquainiance  till  long  afterwards  while  he 
was  Cardinal  Bishop  of  Perugia.  Meeting  him  one  day  in  the  Vatican,  I 
made  bold  to  introduce  myself — not  a  very  difficult  thing,  for  nothing  could 
exceed  the  affability  and  unaffected  goodness  of  His  Eminence.  After 
exchanging  the  first  sentences  required  by  courtesy,  I  asked  him  if  he  were 
the  same  young  distinguished  jurist  who,  in  1835,  bore  off  the  prize  on 
'  Appeals  to  the  Supreme  Pontiff  in  person.'  He  replied,  with  a  smile,  that 
he  was  ;  and  I  told  him  I  had  come  after  a  long  lapse  of  years  to  do  hom- 
age to  him  as  to  my  victor  in  that  contest.  It  was  a  very  pleasant  intro- 
duction ;  for  the  eminent  prelate,  revered  throughout  all  Italy  for  his  learn- 
ing, his  eloquence,  and  his  many  virtues,  was  not  loath  to  recall  the 
academical  struggles  of  long  ago,  when  young  men  contended  apparently 
for  a  paltry  sum  of  money.  After  the  death  of  Pius  IX.  and  the  elevation 
to  the  papal  chair  of  Cardinal  Pecci,"  Dr.  Kirby  went  on,  "  I  happened  to 
be  in  t  ;e  Vatican  to  pay  my  homage  on  a  certain  occasion.  '  Holy  Fa- 
ther,' I  said,  'I  have  found  the  dissertation  you  were  inquiring  about, 
among  my  papers.'  'Have  you,  indeed?'  he  replied.  'Well,  I  should 
much  like  to  see  it,  and  you  must  publish  it  '  Thus  it  was  my  little 
pamphlet  snw  the  light.  But,"  continued  Dr.  Kirby,  "you  can  see  in 
this  little  trait  the  charming  humility  and  simplicity  of  the  Pope's  charac- 
ter. To  those  whom  he  is  acquainted  with  personally,  or  who  are  in  any 


58' 


APPENDIXES. 


way  admitted  to  his  intimacy,  he  is  on  the  throne  what  he  was  fifty  years 
ago — a  man  utterly  devoid  of  self-consciousness  and  self-seeking." 

Dr.  Kirby  dedicates  the  printed  dissertation  to  the  Pope  in  a  graceful 
Latin  address  not  unworthy  of  Leo  XIII. 's  classic  taste.  "Deign,  Holy 
Father,"  he  says,  "  to  accept  these  unscholarly  pages  as  a  part  of  the  spoils 
of  those  vanquished  by  you  at  the  beginning  of  your  glorious  career.  Ac- 
cept them  also  as  some  slight  earnest  of  the  ancestral  faith  and  devotion 
toward  your  Holiness — that  is,  the  Chair  of  Peter — which  I  imbibed  with 
my  mother's  milk.  '  For  we  Irish,'  to  use  the  words  of  my  fellow-coun- 
tryman, St.  Coiumbanus,  '  are  firmly  attached  to  the  Chair  of  St.  Peter. 
Rome,  in  truth,  is  great  and  her  fame  is  wide-spread.  But  in  our  country 
she  is  only  great  and  illustrious  through  that  Chair.  Because  of  the  two 
Apostles  of  Christ  you  of  Rome  are  almost  heavenly  beings,  and  Rome  is 
by  them  the  head  of  all  the  churches  on  earth.' 

"  So,  kneeling  at  the  feet  of  your  Holiness,  I  ask  a  blessing  for  my- 
self, for  this  college,  and  my  native  Ireland  ;  I  also  pray  God  to  guide 
your  Holiness  by  His  light  in  the  government  of  the  Church,  so  that  even 
as  you  were  always  the  victor  in  the  beginning  of  your  sacred  warfare  for 
the  truth,  so  you  may  continue  to  vanquish  all  the  enemies  of  the  Church 
to  the  end." 


APPENDIX  C. 

The  cardinals  are  the  immediate  counsellors  and  coadjutors  of  the 
Pope,  who  divide  with  him  in  Rome  the  enormous  labor  of  governing  up- 
wards of  two  hundred  million  Catholics  spread  all  over  the  globe,  and  of 
transacting  in  the  centre  of  Catholicity  the  vast  business  pertaining  to  this 
administration. 

This  complex  business  is  divided  into  various  departments  and  sub- 
departments,  at  the  head  of  which  is  a  "  Congregation,"  or  standing  com- 
mittee, of  cardinals,  assisted  by  a  staff  of  the  most  eminent  jurists,  canon- 
ists, theologians,  and  specialists,  who,  as  consultors  and  referendaries,  tho- 
roughly sift  each  matter  submitted  to  the  congregation  before  it  is  pro- 
nounced upon  by  the  cardinals  in  session,  and  then  reported  to  the  Sove- 
reign Pontiff  for  his  sanction.  The  decision  thus  sanctioned  is  then 
signed  by  the  cardinal  president  of  the  congregation  and  by  the  secretary, 
and  is  final,  generally  speaking. 

These  congregations,  as  one  may  imagine,  are  very  numerous,  the 
same  cardinal  often  doing  service  in  several — a  service  so  laborious  that 
no  one  who  has  not  been  in  Rome  and  followed  attentively  the  working 
of  this  great  and  complicated  administrative  machinery  can  have  any 
notion  whatever  of  the  continual  and  enormous  fatigue  thus  imposed  on 
the  resident  members  of  the  Sacred  College. 

Here  are  the  names  of  the  most  important  of  these  congregations  : 
I.  Inquisition — Not   that  established  in  Spain  as  an   instrument  of  state 

policy,  and  often  maintained  in  its  cruel  and   unsparing  measures  in 

spite  of  the  remonstrances  of  the  Holy  See,  but  the  Roman  Inquisition, 


APPENDIXES.  583 

whose  object  is  to  watch  over  the  purity  of  the  Christian  doctrine  in 
every  part  of  Christ's  flock      Its  judgments  are  merely  doctrinal. 

2.  The  Index — For   the   condemnation  of    books   contrary  to    faith    and 

morals. 

3.  The  Propagation  of  the  Faith,  or  Propaganda — It  does  the  work  of  Christ's 

Vicar  by  taking  all  possible  means  to  spread  the  faith  in  heathen  lands 
and  to  restore  it  in  lands  distracted  by  heresy. 

It  has  a  special  sub-congregation  for  the  superintendence  of  all 
churches  belonging  to  the  Oriental  Rites,  and  a  special  commission 
of  three  cardinals  for  revising  and  correcting  of  Oriental  ecclesiastical 
books. 

4.  Examination  of  Bishops. 

5.  Extraordinary  Ecclesiastical  Affairs. 

6.  Bishops  and  Regulars — Judges  appeals  from  the  decisions  of  bishops, 

hears  causes  between  bishops  and  members  of  religious  orders,  exam- 
ines and  approves  the  rules  of  all  monastic  orders. 

7.  On  the  State  of  Regulars  or  Religious  Orders. 

8.  The  Sacred  Penitentiary. 

9.  The  Congregation  of  the  Counci — Interprets  the  docirine  and  discipli- 

nary decrees  of  General  Councils. 

10.  Congregation  of  Studies — For   the   studies  within  Rome  and  all  Italy. 
To   this   the   present  Pope   has  joined   a  commission   on   historical 

studies. 

11.  Sucre J  Rites. 

APPENDIX    D. 

THE   RIGHT   OF   VETO   IN   PAPAL   ELECTIONS. 

The  three  acknowledged  Catholic  Powers,  France,  Spain,  and  Austria 
(as  well  as  Portugal,  according  to  some  authors),  had,  by  moral  compul- 
sion or  in  recognition  of  some  great  service  rendered  to  religion,  obtained 
the  right  of  veto  or  "exclusion"  in  a  conclave.  If  a  certain  candidate 
happened  to  be  obnoxious  to  the  sovereign  of  any  of  these  kingdoms,  he 
had  a  right  to  protest  through  his  ambassador  against  the  choice  of  such 
candidate,  thereby  "excluding"  him  from  all  chance  of  being  elected. 
This  right  or  privilege  could  only  be  exercised  once  during  the  conclave 
by  any  Power,  and  that  before  a  two-thirds  vote  had  been  cast  for  any  can- 
didate. Once  such  vote  had  been  given  the  election  was  over,  and  no 
veto  or  "  exclusion  "  availed  to  invalidate  it. 

There  is  no  instance  on  record  of  such  right  of  "exclusion"  having 
been  exercised  by  Portugal. 

The  last  instance  of  "  exclusion  "  was  that  exercised  by  Spain  in  the 
conclave  which,  in  January,  1831,  elected  Gregory  XVI.  The  person  thus 
excluded  was  Cardinal  Giustiniani,  who  on  the  morning  of  January  7  re- 
ceived twenty-one  votes,  within  four  of  the  required  two-thirds.  There- 
unon  the  Spanish  Cardinal  Marco  communicated  to  the  dean  of  the  Sacred 
College  and  to  Cardinal  Odescalchi,  nephewto  Giustiniani,  a  note  of  Pedro 


584  APPENDIXES. 

Gomez  Labrador,  ambassador  of  the  King  of  Spain  to  the  Holy  See,  dated 
December  24,  1830,  and  expressly  "excluding"  Cardinal  Giustiniani. 

The  note  was  read  to  the  Sacred  College  immediately  after  the  ballot 
which  gave  Cardinal  Giustiniani  twenty-one  votes.  This  venerable  man 
at  once  advanced  with  a  joyous  air  and  step  into  the  middle  of  the  chapel, 
and,  after  expressing  his  surprise  at  such  "  exclusion  "  coming  from  the 
King  of  Spain,  who  had  bestowed  on  him  during  his  nunciature  at  Madrid 
signal  marks  of  esteem  and  favor,  he  continued  : 

"Of  all  the  benefits  bestowed  on  me  by  his  Majesty  [Ferdinand  VII.], 
that  which  1  look  upon  as  the  chief  and  the  most  grateful  to  me — at  least 
in  its  consequences — is  that  he  has  this  day  excluded  me  from  tlie  lofty 
dignity  of  the  Pontificate.  Conscious  as  I  am  of  my  own  infirmity,  I  could 
never  have  anticipated  the  danger  of  being  burdened  with  so  heavy  a  re- 
sponsibility. Still,  perceiving  during  these  iast  days,  to  my  surprise, 
that  I  was  thought  of  in  this  respect,  I  was  filled  with  heartfelt  grief.  To- 
day, as  this  load  of  anxiety  is  removed  from  me,  my  peace  of  mind  is  re- 
stored. .  .  ." 

It  was  no  secret  that  Cardinal  Giustiniani  was  utterly  opposed  to  his 
own  elevation  to  the  Papacy.  In  this  he  resembled  Cardinal  Fecci. 

Upon  this  right  of  veto  in  connection  with  the  conclave  of  February, 
1878,  we  may  quote  the  following  words:  "This  privilege,  which  so  often 
proved  to  be  injurious  to  the  interests  of  the  Church,  would  be  still  more 
in  our  times,  when  governments  have  become  entirely  separated  from  the 
Church.  The  grounds  on  which  it  was  originally  granted  having  thus 
ceased  to  exist  the  privilege  itself  thereby  ceased  to  exist.  A  journal  said 
something  about  this  veto.  But,  whatever  may  have  been  the  dispositions 
of  those  who  could  have  claimed  the  privilege,  it  is  certain  that  no  move 
wns  made  in  that  direction,  and  th:it  the  governments  showed  that  they 
disclaimed  it,  or  rather  that  they  knew  they  had  lost  all  right  to  it.  Thus 
it  is  that,  even  in  the  midst  of  new  persecutions,  the  Church  succeeds  in 
freeing  herself  from  bonds  and  impediments  which  she  had  to  bear  with 
in  other  circumstances,  but  which  were  far  from  being  desirable  or  ser- 
viceable to  her." 


APPENDIX  E. 

"  VENERABLE  BROTHERS  :  The  matter  on  which  we  have  undertaken  to 
address  you  is  already  well  known  to  the  public.  As,  however,  it  regards 
the  common  welfare  of  all  nations  and  constitutes  a  revival  of  a  most 
honorable  customary  function  of  the  Apostolic  See,  we  have  thought  thai 
the  transaction  deserved  to  be  related  to  you  by  ourselves  on  this  impor- 
tant occasion. 

"  In  the  month  of  September  last  we  were  requested,  both  by  the  Em- 
peror of  Germany  and  the  King  of  Spain,  to  take  upon  ourselves  to  arbi- 
trate between  them  in  the  dispute  arisen  concerning  the  Carolinas  Islands. 
We  gladly  accepted  the  office  thus  entrusted  to  us,  in  the  hope  of  helping 
the  cause  of  peace  and  humanity.  We  therefore  examined  and  weighed 


A  PPENDIXES.  585 

in  the  balance  of  an  impartial  and  equitable  judgment  the  arguments  of 
both  parties,  ami  then  submitted  certain  propositions  as  a  basis  on  which 
both  should  agree,  and  which  we  hoped  would  prove  acceptable  to  them. 

"  Spain  alleged  many  reasons  in  support  of  her  right  to  that  distant 
portion  of  Micronesia.  She  was  the  first  nation  whose  ships  had  reached 
those  shores,  and  this  fact  was  acknowledged  by  the  most  distinguished 
geographers.  The  very  name  of  Carolinas  attested  the  Spanish  title.  Be- 
sides, the  kings  of  Spain  had  often  sent  thither  apostolic  men  as  mission- 
aries, and  of  this  the  annals  of  the  Roman  Pontificate  afford  confirmatory 
proof  ;  for  there  exists  a  letter  of  our  predecessor,  Clement  XL,  to  Philip 
V.,  written  in  1706,  and  praising  the  king  for  having  equipped  and  fur- 
nished a  vessel  to  transport  missionaries  to  these  islands.  He  moreover 
exhorts  his  Majesty  to  continue  to  propagate  the  Christian  name  and 
help  procure  the  salvation  of  multitudes  of  men. 

"  The  same  Pontiff  also  wrote  to  Louis  XIV.  beseeching  him  to  op- 
pose no  obstacles  to  the  happy  issue  of  an  enterprise  so  happily  begun  by 
his  royal  grandson.  Again,  Philip  V.  appointed  in  aid  of  these  missions 
(to  the  Carolinas)  a  sum  of  two  thousand  cro\vns.  Furthermore,  none  but 
the  Spanish  nation  ever  did  anything  to  help  to  bring  the  light  of  the  Gos- 
pel to  the  islanders.  Finally,  none  but  these  missionaries  have  ever  given 
any  information  to  the  world  on  the  manner  of  living  and  customs  of  the 
natives  of  the  Caro'.inas. 

"  From  this  series  of  facts,  viewed  especially  in  the  light  of  the  then 
existing  international  law,  one  clearly  perceives  that  the  right  of  Spain  to 
the  Carolinas  Islands  stands  forth  well  established.  For  if  any  right  of 
domination  can  be  justly  founded  on  the  fact  of  enlightening  barbarous 
peoples,  it  must  be  granted  that  those  who  had  endeavored  to  convert  them 
from  pagan  superstition  to  the  Gospel  truth  contributed  most  to  their 
civilization,  since  to  our  holy  religion  belong  all  the  forces  capable  of 
humanizing  men.  On  this  principle  was  founded  the  right  of  possession 
in  more  than  one  instance,  particularly  in  the  case  of  islands  in  the  ocean, 
many  of  which  bear  names  given  them  by  religion. 

"  Seeing,  therefore,  that  a  long  and  well-founded  public  opinion  con- 
ceded to  Spain  the  possession  of  the  Carolinas  Islands,  it  cannot  be  won- 
dered at  if.  when  this  dispute  arose,  the  Spanish  people  were  so  excited 
that  there  was  great  danger  for  the  internal  peace  of  the  kingdom  and  for 
its  friendly  relations  with  other  powers. 

"  To  these  arguments  Germany  opposed  others,  also  based  on  interna- 
tional law  :  that  to  hold  a  landed  possession  residence  is  necessary  ;  that, 
taking  into  account  the  facts  of  modern  history,  international  law  sanc- 
tions the  rightful  ownership  of  unoccupied  land  by  holding  it  and  using  it  ; 
that  so  long  as  such  lands  are  not  so  held  by  occupation  and  use  they  are 
to  be  accounted  as  belonging  to  no  owner.  Wherefore,  considering  the 
fact  that  the  Carolinas  had  not  during  a  century  and  a  half  been  occupied 
by  Spain,  the  islands  should  have  been  adjudged  ihe  property  of  the  first 
person  taking  possession  of  them.  In  support  of  this  it  was  alleged  that 
some  such  dispute  as  the  present  having  arisen  in  1875,  both  Germany 


586  APPENDIXES. 

and  Great  Britain  affirmed  that  they  would  never  acknowledge  the  right 
of  Spain  to  the  ownership  of  the  Carol inas. 

"  Seeing  how  divided  between  contrary  opinions  men's  minds  were, 
we  endeavored  to  prevent  further  dissension;  ;md,  taking  into  account 
the  respective  rights  and  interests  of  the  two  cont<  nding  nations,  we  con- 
fidently laid  before  them  a  plan  for  bringing  about  a  peaceful  settlement. 
We  were  guided  only  by  our  sense  of  equity,  and,  as  you  are  aware,  both 
disputants  willingly  agreed  to  our  plan. 

"  So  then  a  thing  happened  of  which  the  present  direction  of  pub- 
lic opinion  did  not  afford  much  hope.  Providence  willed  that  two  j>reat 
and  illustrious  nations  should  do  homage  to  the  highest  authority  in  the 
Church  by  asking  it  to  fulfil  an  office  so  much  in  harmony  with  its  nature, 
to  preserve  by  its  action  the  threatened  peace  and  harmony  between  them. 
This  is  the  fruit  of  that  salutary  and  beneficent  influence  which  God  has 
attached  to  the  power  of  the  Sovereign  Pontiffs.  Superior  to  the  envious 
jealousy  of  its  enemies,  and  more  mighty  than  the  prevailing  iniquity  of 
the  age,  it  is  subject  neither  to  destruction  nor  to  change. 

"  From  all  this,  too,  it  becomes  manifest  how  grievous  an  evil  are  the 
wars  waged  against  the  Apostolic  See  and  the  lessening  of  its  rightful 
liberty.  For  thereby  it  is  not  merely  justice  and  religion  that  are  made 
the  sufferers,  but  the  public  good  itself,  since,  in  the  present  perilous  and 
changeful  condition  of  public  affairs,  the  Roman  Pontificate  would  confer 
far  greater  benefits  on  the  world  if,  with  perfect  freedom  and  unimpaired 
rights,  it  could  bestow  all  its  energies  in  promoting,  without  impediment, 
the  salv.ition  of  the  human  race. 

"  The  discovery  made  by  Spain,  in  the  sixteenth  century,  of  the  Caro 
linas  and  Palaos  Islands,  and  a  series  of  acts  done  by  the  Spanish  govern- 
ment in  these  same  islands  at  different  times  and  for  the  benefit  of  the 
native  populations  thereof,  have,  in  the  opinion  of  the  Spanish  government 
and  people,  created  a  title  to  sovereignty  over  the  same,  based  on  the 
maxims  of  international  law  which  were  in  vogue  and  followed  in  that 
age  when  such  conflicts  arose.  Indeed,  when  we  take  into  consideration 
this  series  of  acts,  the  truth  of  which  is  confirmed  by  various  documents 
in  the  archives  of  the  Propaganda,  it  is  impossible  to  deny  the  beneficent 
labors  of  Spain  in  favor  of  these  islanders.  And  it  is  further  to  be  re- 
marked that  no  other  government  at  any  time  extended  to  these  islands 
a  like  beneficent  action.  This  explains  the  unbroken  tradition,  which 
cannot  be  overlooked,  and  the  strong  feeling  of  conviction  among  the 
Spanish  people  respecting  this  sovereignty — a  tradition  and  a  conviction 
which,  two  months  ago,  manifested  themselves  in  such  outbu-sts  of  warmth 
and  animosity  that  they  seriously  threatened  to  compromise  momentarily 
the  interior  tranquillity  of  the  kingdom  and  the  relations  existing  between 
the  two  friendly  governments. 

"On  her  side,  Germany,  as  well  as  England,  declared  expressly  in 
1875  to  the  Spanish  government  that  they  did  not  acknowledge  the  sove- 
reignty of  Spain  over  these  islands  Far  from  sur!i  acknowledgment,  the 
Imperial  government  is  of  opinion  that  nothing  but  the  effective  occupa- 


APPENDIXES.  587 

tion  of  a  territory  can  constitute  sovereignty  over  it ;  and  such  occupation 
of  the  Carolinas  by  Spain  never  has  been  effected. 

'•  It  is  in  conformity  with  this  principle  that  Germany  acted  in  the 
island  of  Yap,  and  on  this  point  the  Mediator  is  gratified  in  declaring 
that  the  Imperial  government  acted  with  perfect  honesty,  which  is  also 
acknowledged  by  the  Spanish  government. 

"Wherefore,  and  in  order  to  prevent  this  divergence  of  opinions  from 
becoming  an  obstacle  to  an  honorable  settlement  between  the  two  govern 
ments,  the  Mediator,  after  duly  considering  the  whole  question,  proposes 
that  in  the  new  convention  to  be  agreed  upon  both  parties  accept  the  for- 
mulas of  the  Protocol  concerning  the  Soulou  (lolo)  Archipelago,  signed 
at  Madrid  the  7th  of  last  March  by  the  representatives  of  Great  Britain, 
Germany,  and  Spain,  and  that  the  following  points  be  adopted  : 

"'First  Point:  The  sovereignty  of  Spain  over  the  Carolinas  and 
Palaos  Islands  is  affirmed.  Second  Point:  The  Spanish  government,  in 
order  to  render  its  said  sovereignty  effective,  binds  itself  to  establish,  as 
soon  as  possible,  in  this  archipelago  a  regular  administration,  with  a  force 
sufficient  to  preserve  order  and  protect  acquired  rights.  Third  Point  : 
Spain  proffers  to  Germany  full  and  entire  freedom  of  commerce,  naviga- 
tion, and  fishing  in  these  islands,  as  well  as  the  right  to  establish  there  a 
naval  station  and  a  coaling  depot.  Fourth  Point  :  To  Germany  is  also  se- 
cured the  liberty  of  making  plantations  in  these  islands,  and  there  found- 
ing agricultural  establishments  on  the  same  footing  as  Spanish  subjects.' 

"  ROME,  from  the  Vatican,  October  22,  1885. 

"  L.  CARD.  JACOBINJ." 


INDKX. 


589 


INDEX. 


Abolionan,  Mgr.,  elected  Patriarch  of 
Babylon,  378,  confirmed  by  Sublime 
Porte,  393. 

Abyssinia,  hindrances  to  Christianity 
in,  406. 

Academies,  annual,  instituted  by  Mgr. 
Pecci  in  Perugia,  149. 

Academy  of  St.  Thomas,  Rome,  insti- 
tuted, "  Transactions  "  of ,  151,  152, 

491- 
"  Acta  Leonis  XIII."  quoted,  326,  338, 

341,   350,  373.  387,  403,  415,  419. 

430,  431,  441,  475,  484,  493. 
Alexander  IV.,  Pope,  reminiscence  of, 

208. 
Alexander  II.  of  Russia,  severity  of,  to 

Catholics,    380;    letter  of,    to   Leo 

XIII.,  384  ;  sons  of,  sent  to  Rome, 

385. 

Alfonso  XII  of  Spain  in  the  Carolinas 
affair,  547  ;  death  of,  tribute  to,  549. 

Allocutions  of  Leo  XIII.:  the  first,  323- 
326,  410  ;  on  outrages  at  funeral  of 
Pius  IX.,  436-439  ;  on  Carolinas  af- 
fair, 552-554,  584-587- 

America,  Catholicism  on  continent  of, 
352  ;  French  missionaries  in,  497- 
500. 

Anarchism — see  Socialism. 

Ancillon,  Johann  P.,  on  Papacy  in  mid- 
dle ages,  539. 

Angelis,  Cardinal  Philip  de,  sufferings 
of,  218,  285  ;  death  of,  284  ;  affec- 
tion of  Pius  IX.  for,  Camerlengo,  285, 
286. 

Anne,  St.,  affection  of  Mgr.  Pecci  for, 
133  ;  churches  of,  at  Auray  (France), 
Quebec  (Canada),  Youghal  (Ireland), 

134- 

Annunciation,  church  of  O.  L.  of,  in- 
scription at  by  Joachim  Pecci,  74. 

Apostolic  See — see  Holy  See. 

Aquinas,  St.  Thomas,  method  of,  150, 
adopted  by  Mgr.  Pecci,  151  ;  Acade- 
my of,  instituted,  151,  491  ;  Sixth 
Centenary  of,  151  ;  philosophy  of, 
prescribed  for  Catholic  schools,  485  ; 
praise  of,  by  Leo  XIII  ,  488,  490; 
homage  paid  to,  by  councils,  490. 

Athanasius,  St. ,  College  of,  for  Greeks 


founded,  389  ;  improvements  in,  by 
Leo  XIII.,  390 ;  countries  repre- 
sented at,  391. 

Audo,  Joseph,  Patriarch  of  Chaldea, 
piety  of,  392. 

Augustine,  St.,  quoted,  338,  429, 
487. 

Baccelli,  Dr.,  determines  to  exclude  re- 
ligion from  schools,  359. 

Bahtiarian,  Mgr.,  creates  schism  in  Ar- 
menia, 394  ;  seeks  absolution,  395. 

Ballarini,  Mgr.,  155. 

Ballerini,  Father,  quoted,  71,  122. 

Baltimore,  Third  Plen.  Council  of,  con- 
vened, 441  ;  opened,  blessing  from 
Pope,  449,  response,  450  ;  telegram 
of,  lo  Card.  McCloskey,  450 ;  closed, 
451;  pastoral  letter  of  fathers  of, 
451-456;  work  of,  for  education, 
Catholic  University,  456,  457  ;  sche- 
ma of,  approved  by  Leo  XIII.,  457  ; 
letter  to,  from  Archbishop  of  Co- 
logne, 472 

Barberini,  Cardinal  Antonio,  scholar- 
ships founded  by,  in  Propaganda, 

534- 

Belgian  College,  Rome,  founded,  123, 
124  ;  predilection  for,  of  Mgr.  Pecci, 
122. 

Belgium,  why  separated  from  Holland, 
log  ;  results  of  constitutional  govern- 
ment in,  no  ;  secret  societies  in,  no, 
111,115,119;  school  system  in.  112, 
113  ;  queen  of,  devoted  to  Christian 
education,  113,  114;  Catholics  of, 
deceived  in  accepting  constitution, 
119  ;  feeling  of  people  of,  for  Mgr. 
Pecci,  121,  125,  126;  societies  for 
workingmen  in.  322. 

Benevento,  Italy,  description  of,  89  ; 
results  of  French  rule  in,  briganda  -e 
in,  90,  91  ;  affection  of  people  of, 
for  Mgr.  Pecci,  92-94  ;  brigandage 
in,  eradicated,  95,  98  ;  industry  and 
commerce  revived  in,  98  ;  cession  of, 
asked  by  King  Ferdinand,  98,  re- 
fused by  Pope,  99. 

Bible,  mutilated  translations  of,  in 
cities  of  The  Marches,  218. 


59« 


592 


INDEX. 


Bismarck,  Prince,  disposed  to  meet 
the  Pope,  351  ;  meaning  given  by, 
to  Kulturkampf,  363  ;  account  by, 
of  advances  to  Leo  XIII.,  474-476  ; 
on  results  of  Kulturkampf,  476 ; 
steps  of,  toward  reconciliation  with 
Holy  See,  477;  views  of,  as  to 
Catholics,  changed,  551. 

Boccali,  Mgr.  Gabriel,  155  ;  Auditor 
of  His  Holiness,  572. 

Bonnechose,  Cardinal  de,  account  by, 
of  Cardinal  Pecci  in  conclave,  310. 

Borromeo,  St.  Charles,  zeal  of,  for 
education,  141  ;  established  catechism 
classes,  141,  142. 

Boschi,  Archpriest,  155. 

Bosnia  and  Herzegovina,  hierarchy 
erected  in,  388. 

Brigandage  in  Italy  in  1838,  90,  91, 
95,  96 ;  adventure  of  Mgr.  Pecci 
with,  97. 

Brommel,  Bishop  von,  of  Liege,  posi- 
tion of,  on  education,  122. 

Brunelli,  Prof.  G. ,  reminiscence  by,  of 
Mgr.  Pecci,  148,  155. 

Brussels,  University  of,  its  irreligious 
character,  115,  116  ;  efforts  of  Catho- 
lics for,  defeated,  117. 

Calixtus  II.  fosters  devotion  to  shrine 
of  St.  James  of  Compostella,  558, 

559- 

Camaldolese  of  Monte  Corona,  hard- 
ships of,  246,  248. 

Cantu,  Cesare,  opposes  suppression  of 
monasteries,  249. 

Caprara,  Cardinal,  as  legate  to  Paris, 
80. 

Carafa,  Prof.  A.,  in  Collegio  Romano, 
68. 

Carbonari,  power  of,  in  1820,  IO2  ; 
Central  Lodge  of,  on  temporal 
power  of  Pope,  206. 

Cardinals,  College  of,  their  labors, 
269  ;  Cardinal  Pecci's  duties  as 
member  of,  270  ;  deaths  in,  in  1877, 
283-285  ;  confirm  last  protest  of 
Pius  IX.,  298  ;  prepare  for  conclave 
of  1878,  300,  301,  Amat,  Morichini. 
Catterini  invalids,  301,  members 
present  and  nbsent,  302,  unhampered 
in  election,  302,  303,  character  of 
members,  303,  distinctive  colors  at, 
305  ;  pay  homage  to  Leo  XIII  ,  312, 
319  ;  as  counsellors  to  Pope,  325  ; 
council  of,  for  filling  Italian  sees, 
370 ;  congregations  of,  571,  582, 
list,  582,  583. 

Camicchi,  Canons,  155. 


Carolinas  Islands,  discovered  and  set- 
tled by  Spaniards,  543,  544  ;  mission 
abandoned,  title  lost  to  Spain,  544 ; 
Yap  occupied  by  Germany,  546, 
547 ;  dispute  settled  by  Holy  See, 
548,  551-554,  584-587. 

Carpineto,  description  of,  37,  38,  40. 

Catholic  Church,  dark  hours  of,  33, 
34;  despoiled  by  Napoleon  I.,  49, 
51  ;  revival  of,  in  Great  Britain, 
127  ;  bishops  of,  in  Italy,  relu>e 
compromise  with  government,  169, 
results,  assistance  from  Pope,  i/o; 
bishops  of,  protest  to  King  Victor 
Emmanuel,  170-175  ;  attempted  de- 
struction of,  by  Julian  the  Apostate, 
172  ;  temporal  dominion  of,  199  ; 
independent  of  state,  219  ;  right  of, 
in  matrimony,  230  ;  courts  of,  and 
control  of  education  in  Umbna, 
abolished,  242,  243  ;  alone  has  juris- 
diction of  Religious  Orders,  245  ; 
treated  as  a  foreign  power,  253  ;  re- 
lations of,  to  state,  254  ;  war  against, 
not  an  open  one,  288  ;  hatred  for. 
the  cause  of  social  evils,  330,  331  ; 
the  promoter  of  civilization,  332- 
334  ;  able  to  restore  modern  society, 
345  ;  preservation  of.  in  Italy,  seem- 
ingly hopeless,  362  ;  persecution  of, 
in  Russia.  380-385  ;  troubles  of,  in 
Turkey,  392-397 ;  progress  of.  in 
Persia,  398-402,  in  China,  402-404, 
in  Japan,  405,  in  Abyssinia,  406 ; 
revival  of,  in  England,  408,  409,  in 
Scotland,  409-415  ;  in  United  States, 
421,  422  ;  clergy  of,  in  Ireland,  not 
united,  425  results  of  union  of,  427  ; 
birth  of  hierarchy  of.  in  United 
States,  447  ;  growth  of,  in  United 
States,  452  ;  compatible  with  Ameri- 
can institutions,  455  ;  persecution 
of,  in  Germany,  460-480 ;  sole  aim 
of,  486  ;  in  ancient  France,  496,  in 
modern  France,  497-521  ;  relation 
of  Religious  Orders  to.  505  ;  and 
civil  government,  509 ;  institutions 
of,  oppressed  in  France,  515,  516; 
wins  esteem  of  German  government, 
550,  551. 

Cavour,  Count  Camillo  di,  part  taken 
by,  in  Italian  revolution,  102  ;  uses 
revolutionary  clubs  as  auxiliaries, 
216  ;  on  ecclesiastical  property,  246. 

"  Cenni  Storici  "  quoted,  71,  77,  117, 
131,  309,  310. 

Charles  Emmanuel  IV.  driven  from 
Italy,  his  character,  85  ;  becomes  a 
lay  brother,  86. 


INDEX. 


593 


China,  letter  of  Leo  XIII.  to  Emperor 
of,  402,  resented  by  France,  404. 

Cholera  at  Rome  in  1837,  82. 

Cicernacchio, ,  resolution  of,  ex- 
communicating Pius  IX.,  297. 

Cittadini,  Mgr.,  death  of,  132. 

Civilization,  Cardinal  Pecci  on,  288, 
289  ;  the  Church  the  promoter  of, 
332-334  ;  indebted  to  Religious  Or- 
ders, 5016  ;  in  Germany — see  Kultur- 
kampf. 

Clerical    Abuses    Bill,    Italy,    passed, 

277- 

Collegio  Romano,  Vincent  Pecci  at, 
65-71  ;  professors  at,  68,  493;  stu- 
dents of,  as  Jubilee  pilgrims,  72 ; 
students  of,  visit  Leo  XIII.,  357; 
means  of  education  at,  493. 

Collegium  Urbanum — see  Urban  Col- 
lege. 

Colletta,  Pasquale  (brigand),  captured, 

95- 

Cologne,  Archbishop  of,  persecuted  by 
Prussian  government,  467  ;  letter 
of,  to  Baltimore  council,  472  ;  Leo 
XIII.  to,  on  science,  483 

Communism — see  Socialism. 

Compostella,  Spain,  pilgrimage  to, 
restored  by  Leo  XIII.,  556  ;  history 
of  pilgrimage,  557-560. 

Conclave,  right  of  veto  in,  instances  of, 
583,  584;  those  held  in  Perugia,  208. 
Conclave  of  1878,  first  official  act  at, 
298  ;  held  in  Sistine  Chapel,  299  ; 
laws  regarding,  300 ;  customs  fol- 
lowed in  former  conclaves,  300,  301  ; 
opening  ceremonies  of,  303  ;  cere- 
monies of  enclosure  at,  304  ;  furni- 
ture and  accommodations  at,  305  ; 
first  ballot  at,  306,  308  ;  second 
ballot,  308,  309  ;  third  ballot.  Car- 
dinal Pecci  chosen,  310,  311  ;  con- 
clave closed,  312. 

Conde,  Count  Henri  de,  reminiscence 
by,  of  Mgr.  Pecci,  120,  121. 

Congress,  Catholic,  at  Mayence,  action 
at,  466,  protests  at,  470,  471  ;  at 
Wlirzburg,  468 ;  Congresses  pro- 
hibited by  German  government, 
471. 

Conscience,  Mgr.  Pecci  on  liberty  of, 
232,  233. 

Conservatorio  Pio,  Perugia,  finished 
by  Mgr.  Pecci,  186  ;  teachers  at,  187. 

Constantius,  St.,  note  on,  269. 

Coquerel,  Athanase,  on  Holy  See  in 
middle  ages.  542. 

Courts,  ecclesiastical,  abolished  by  Sic- 
cardi  Laws,  241,  242. 


Cyril,  St.,  work  of,  for  Slavs,  386  ; 
Leo  XIII. 's  encyclical  on,  387  ;  his 
death,  389. 

Depretis,  Agostino,  counts  German 
emperor  an  ally,  351. 

Doctrine,  Christian,  societies  of,  es- 
tablished in  sixteenth  century,  141  ; 
promoted  by  the  Borromeos  and 
Francis  Xavier,  141,  142  ;  estab- 
lished by  Mgr.  Pecci  in  Perugia, 
144  ;  urged  upon  priests,  145. 

Dollinger,  Dr.  Joseph  von,  responsible 
for  German  persecutions,  461  ;  in- 
spires warfare  against  Church,  462  ; 
organizes  Old-Catholic  Church,  463. 

Dominion,  Temporal,  pastoral  on, 
198  ;  not  a  dogma  of  faith,  20 1  ; 
Frederick  II.  and  Mazzini  on,  206  ; 
Leo  XIII.  on,  347  ;  needed  to  secure 
liberty  of  Pope,  532. 

Donnet,  Cardinal,  description  by,  of 
Cardinal  Pecci  in  conclave,  309. 

Dupanloup,  Bishop  F.  A.,  works  of, 
on  Holy  See,  200. 

East,  zeal  of  Leo  XIII.  for,  347,  392, 
fruits,  378  ;  progress  of  Christianity 
in,  391-407 ;  educational  schemes 
for,  458,  459 ;  French  missionaries 
in,  498. 

Education,  in  Italy,  dechristianized  by 
Napoleon  I.,  51  ;  in  Belgium,  re- 
ligious and  godless,  in  ;  public  and 
denominational  schools  contrasted, 
112  ;  strife  for,  in  Belgium,  113,  122; 
of  priests,  should  be  superior,  123  ; 
Mgr.  Pecci's  zeal  for,  in  Perug'a, 
144,  147,  152,  156;  lay.  Mgr.  Pecci's 
zeal  for,  185  ;  defective,  Mgr  Pecci 
on,  234-236,  on  undenominational, 
236-239  ;  Leo  XIII.  on,  339-341  ; 
Council  of,  for  Rome,  379 ;  in 
United  States,  456,  457  ;  promotion 
of,  in  Rome  by  Leo  XIII.,  481  ;  in 
France,  501,  502,  513,  515. 

Emmanuel,  King  Victor,  convention  of, 
with  Napoleon  III.,  162  ;  encour- 
aged by  England  and  France,  216  ; 
protest  to,  against  civil  marriage, 
224-228  ;  usurps  royal  exequatur  in 
appointing  priests,  252  ;  visits  Ber- 
lin, 470  ;  death  of,  295. 

Encyclicals  of  Leo  XIII.:  Inscrutabili, 
326-341  ;  on  Socialism,  372-378  ;  on 
Sts  Cyril  and  Methodius,  387  ;  on 
Christian  Philosophy,  485-491. 

England,  visit  of  Mgr.  Pecci  to,  126- 
128  ;  public  opinion  in,  hostile  to 


594 


INDEX. 


Pope,  195  ;  diocese  of  Leeds  erect- 
ed, 371  ;  revival  of  Church  in,  408 
409  ;    hierarchy   restored    to,   411 
zeal  of,  in  planting  colonies,   54? 
note  of,  to  Spain  on  Carolina*,  546 
desired     dissolution     of     Ameiican 
Union,  555.     See  Great  Britain, 

Europe,  Powers  of,  hostile  to  Church 
under  Pius  IX.,  33. 

Exequatur,  royal,  usurped  by  Victor 
Emmanuel,  252;  history  of,  254,  256, 
35o;  right  of,  abused  by  Italian  gov- 
ernment, 349. 

Ex  hac  augusta,  bull,  388. 

Ex  Supremo  Apostolatus  A  pice.  Lull  of, 
promulgated  by  Leo  XIII.,  320,  410. 

Falk,  Dr.  (Prussia),  May  Laws  of, 
464,  465,  472,  474,  476;  resigns  of- 
fice, 478. 

Family,  Christian,  Leo  XIII.  on,  336- 

34i. 

Federazione  Piana,  La,  Rome,  pro- 
tests against  centenary  of  Voltaire, 

355- 

Ferdinand  II.  of  Naples  asks  cession 
of  Benevento,  98,  refused,  99. 

Forbin-Janson,  Bishop  de,  117. 

Fornari,  Mgr.  (Cardinal),  Nuncio  at 
Paris,  108. 

France,  Revolution  in  (1793),  spreads 
to  Italy,  47,  destruction  by  armies 
of,  49,  51,  exactions  in  Italy  by  army 
of,  98;  visit  of  Mgr.  Pecci  to,  its 
condition  in  1846,  128,  129;  viola- 
tion by,  of  States  of  the  Church,  197, 
198;  encourages  revolution  in  Italy 
in  1859-61,  216;  resents  intercourse 
of  Holy  See  with  China,  404  ;  fore- 
most Catholic  nation  till  1870,  ef- 
fects of  Commune  in,  495;  ancient 
devotion  of,  to  Papacy,  496;  zeal  of 
missionaries  of,  497-500,  507  ;  reli- 
gious revival  in,  498,  500  ;  educa- 
tion in,  501,  502;  irreligious  forces 
i"i  5°3!  loyalty  of  bishops  of,  to 
Church,  504 ;  Religious  Orders  in, 
505-509,  distinguished  members  of 
— Lacordaire,  Monsabre,  De  Ravi- 
gnan,  Felix,  Gu^ranger,  Pitra,  Ca- 
nier,  Martin — 506;  Catholics  of,  on 
declaration  of  Religious  Orders,  508; 
government  of,  seeks  dissension 
among  Catholics,  509;  apathy  of  Ca- 
tholics in,  510,  512;  dark  outlook 
for,  511;  oppression  of  clergy  of, 
513-520  ;  attempts  of,  to  plant  co- 
lonies. 545  ;  desired  dissolution  of 
\mericaii  Union,  555. 


Franchi,  Card.  Alexander,  as  Secretary 
of  State,  character,  visits  Ireland, 
343;  his  death,  Leo  XIII. 's  eulogy, 

344- 

Francis  of  Assisi,  St.,  hatred  for,  of 
revolutionists,  his  aims.  272  ;  ob- 
ject and  growth  of  Third  Order, 
274,  275  ;  Tegeiids  concerning,  276. 

Franciscans,  of  Carpincto,  56,  57, 
275;  Third  Order  of,  57;  Cardinal 
Pccci  Protector  of  Third  Order, 
270,  his  address  on,  271,  his  admi- 
ration for  Franciscans,  275;  growth 
of  Third  Order,  274. 

Frederick  II.  of  Prussia  on  temporal 
power  of  Pope,  2u6. 

Freemasons,  society  of,  in  Belgium, 
119. 

Frere-Orban,  system  of  godless  schools 
of,  in. 

Fulvio  della  Corgna,  Cardinal,  founds 
Seminary  of  Perugia,  145. 

Gambetta,  Leon,  war  of,  against  the 
Church,  504. 

Garibaldi,  Giuseppe,  as  leader  of  the 
revolution,  102  ;  desire  of,  to  pos- 
sess Rome,  163  ;  bands  of,  ravage 
Umbria,  176  ;  clubs  of,  overrun 
Italy  in  1848-60,  216  ;  apotheosis 
of,  in  Rome,  562. 

Gasparian,  Bishop,  of  Cyprus,  creates 
a  schism,  394;  is  forgiven  by  Leu 
XIII.,  395- 

Gastaldi,  Archbishop,  of  Turin,  thank- 
ed by  Leo  XIII.,  371. 

Germany,  hostility  of,  to  Church 
under  Pius  IX.,  33;  present  friendly 
relations  of,  36;  negotiations  with, 
of  Leo  XII I.,  346,  351  ;  pilgrimage 
from,  to  Leo  XIII. ,  363,  its  fruits, 
366;  sufferings  of  Catholics  of,  let- 
ter of  Leo  XIII.  to  them,  371;  So- 
cialism in,  375-377;  American  bish- 
ops on  Kulturkampf  in,  454  ;  cele- 
bration of  Pius  IX. 's  Jubilee  in, 
461;  Papal  Infallibility  in,  462  ;  Old 
Catholics  in,  463;  Religious  Orders 
in,  suppressed,  463;  working  of  May 
Laws  in,  464,  465,  472,  477;  loyalty 
of  Catholics  in,  466 ;  Catholics  of, 
united,  466,  467  ;  action  of  Catho- 
lics of,  in  congresses,  466,  468;  laws 
guaranteeing  religious  liberty  in,  re- 
pealed, 467;  number  of  Catholics  in 
Prussia  in  1873,  468;  "  reptile 
press"  of.  469;  Catholic  Congresses 
in,  forbidden,  472;  Church  Bill  for. 
passed,  478;  condition  of  Catholics 


INDEX. 


595 


in,  in  1884,  478;  seeks  locations  for 
colonies,  544.  545;  takes  possession 
of  Carolinas  Islands,  wrath  of  Spain, 
546,  547,  notifies  Spain,  German 
flag  insulted,  547,  asks  Holy  See  to 
arbitrate,  548,  result,  548,  551-554, 
584-587  ;  changed  views  in,  as  to 
Catholics,  550. 

Gibbons,  Cardinal  James,  president  of 
Third  Plenary  Council,  441;  made 
cardinal,  459. 

Giunta  Liquidatrice  seizes  Propaganda 
property,  526. 

Giustiniani,  Cardinal,  excluded  from 
election  to  Papacy,  583,  584. 

Gladstone,  William  E.,  Land  and 
Coercion  Acts  of,  425  ;  tribute  to, 
480. 

Government,  constitutional,  workings 
of,  on  Continent  and  among  English 
race,  109  ;  results  of,  in  Belgium, 
no,  in. 

Great  Britain,  revival  of  Catholicism  in, 
127,  408-420  ;  non-Catholics  in,  en- 
courage war  on  Holy  See,  215,  their 
joy  at  seizure  of  Rome,  296  ;  change 
of  public  opinion  in.  408  ;  disputes 
in,  between  Religious  Orders  and 
bishops,  416,  417,  decided  by  Leo 
XIII.,  417-420;  religious  spirit  in, 
421  ;  duty  of,  to  Ireland,  422,  423  ; 
enforces  Coercion  and  Crimes  Acts 
for  Ireland,  425.  433. 

Greece,  college  at  Rome  for  natives 
of,  389  ;  proposed  Catholic  school 
at  Athens,  458,  459. 

Gregory  XVI.,  treatment  of,  by  Eng- 
lish and  American  press,  103  ;  visit 
of,  to  Perugia,  104  ;  settles  dispute 
of  Belgian  Catholics,  122  ;  recalls 
Mgr.  Pecci  from  Brussels,  124,  rea- 
sons for,  1 25  ;  mortal  illness  of,  his 
character,  129,  130  ;  appoints  Mgr. 
Pecci  Archbishop  of  Perugia,  132, 
133  ;  intention  of,  to  preconize  Mgr. 
Pecci.  260  ;  visit  of  Czar  Nicholas 
to,  383. 

Gregory  the  Great  quoted,  419. 

Guibert,  Cardinal  Joseph  H.,  protests 
against    suppression    of     Religious 
Orders,  504  ;  letter  of,  on  oppression  ! 
of  French  clergy,  513-520. 

Guilds,  mediaeval,  splendid  results  of, 
101. 

Guizot,  Fran9ois  P.,  on  the  Papacy,  540. 

Hassun,  Cardinal  Antony  (Armenia), 
deposed  by  government,  395  ;  re- 
called, created  cardinal,  396- 


Herculanus,  St.,  note  on,  269 

Hohenlohe,  Prince  Chlodwig,  respon- 
sible for  German  persecutions.  461  ; 
letter  of,  on  Papal  Infallibility, 
462. 

Holland,  refusal  of,  to  grant  religious 
liberty  to  Belgians,  109 ;  hierarchy 
of,  restored,  411. 

Holy  See  attempted  removal  of,  by 
Napoleon  I.,  64  ;  treachery  to,  of 
Napoleon  III.,  216;  right  of  exe- 
quatur of,  usurped,  252 ;  commis- 
sions Cardinal  Pecci  judge  in  eccle- 
siastical causes,  269  ;  ambassadors  to, 
offer  homage  to  Leo  XIII.,  316  ;  as 
restorer  of  civilization,  334  ;  bene- 
fits of,  to  Italy,  335  ;  rights  and  du- 
ties of,  336  ;  correspondc-nce  of, 
with  Russia,  Switzerland,  352  ;  de- 
signs of,  for  education  in  East.  458, 
459  ;  devotion  of  French  Catholics 
to,  496  ;  sole  purpose  of,  509  ;  value 
of,  when  independent,  525  ;  its  an- 
cient office  as  mediator,  539,  540, 
two  instances,  543,  in  the  Carolinas 
affair,  548  ;  relations  of,  with  Spain, 
549,  with  Germany,  550  ;  probable 
benefits  of,  as  mediator  in  U.  S. 
civil  war,  554-556  ;  some  of  the  du- 
ties of,  571-573- 

Illuminism  in  Belgium,  no. 

Independance  Beige,  ./>,  on  spoliation 
of  Propaganda,  538. 

Infallibility,  Papal,  how  received  in 
Tuikey,  394,  in  Germany,  460,  462. 

Infidelity — see  Irreligion. 

Inscrutabili,  encyclical,  326. 

Ireland,  state  of.  under  English  rule, 
127  ;  Leo  XIII  's  interest  in,  343, 
435,  his  letter  to  Cork,  364  ;  union 
of,  with  England,  how  cemented, 
422,  by  equal  justice  and  Home 
Rule,  423  ;  famine  and  violence  in, 
424,  caused  by  hard-hearted  land- 
lords, 424,  426  ;  Coercion  Act  for, 
424,  425,  Land  Act,  425  ;  origin  of 
Land  and  National  Leagues  in,  426  ; 
union  of  clergy  with  people,  results 
of,  426,  427  ;  National  party  in, 
birth  of,  426,  at  first  unorganized, 
afterward  united,  427  ;  Leo  XIII.'s 
letters  to  bishops  of,  428,  431  ;  right 
of  people  of.  429,  their  pride  as 
Catholics,  431  ;  Crimes  Act  for, 
suppression  of  Land  1  .eague,  433  ; 
Dr.  Wal«h's  influence  in,  434. 

Irreligion  in  Italy  in  1841,  102,  103, 
106  ;  force  of,  in  1846,  143 ;  theo- 


596 


INDEX. 


ries  of,  231  ;  in  United  States,  453  ; 
in  France,  497,  502. 
Italy,  government  of,  hostile  to  Catho- 
licism, 33  ;  people  of,  sunk  in  infi- 
delity, 106,  107  ;  conduct  of  people 
of  Northern  Italy  on  religious  festi- 
vals, 135  ;  demonstrations  in,  against 
religion  in  1846,  135,  136;  irreli- 
gious propaganda  in,  in  1846,  142, 
143  ;  danger  of  people  of,  143,  144  ; 
government  of,  issues  Programmes 
of  Studies,  155  ;  sequestrates  eccle- 
siastical property,  169,  244  ;  com- 
pels bishops  to  pay  tax,  170  ;  alone 
in  conscripting  priests,  175  ;  famine 
in,  in  1854,  177  ;  work  of  Revolu- 
tion in,  in  1846-78,  195;  honey- 
combed by  Revolution,  196,  216; 
violates  Papal  States,  198  ;  authori- 
ties of,  not  to  be  conciliated,  250, 
361,  interfere  with  Church's  rights, 
257  ;  methods  of,  in  choosing  priests, 
pensions  suspended  priests,  258,  259; 
Parliament  of,  passes  Clerical 
Abuses  Bill,  277  ;  government  of, 
desires  to  prohibit  pilgrimages  at 
Pius  IX. 's  Jubilee,  279;  non-inter- 
ference of,  at  Pius  IX.'s  death,  298  ; 
plan  of,  for  reconciliation  with  Pope, 
327  ;  promises  non-interference  with 
bishops,  348,  promise  broken,  349 ; 
prohibits  catechism  in  Catholic 
schools,  358,  allows  full  liberty  to 
non-Catholic  schools,  358,  359  ; 
seizes  schools  in  Rome,  360  ;  delays 
Spanish  pilgrims,  364,  365  ;  pro- 
poses to  do  without  religion,  406  ; 
becomes  an  ally  of'  Dcillinger,  463  ; 
value  to  the  nation  of  independent 
Papacy,  525  ;  government  of,  seizes 
Propaganda  property,  526,  527,  de- 
cision of  courts  on,  527,  528,  action 
universally  reprobated,  531,  specious 
reasoning  on,  535. 

Jacobinism  in  Italy,  101,  102  ;  in 
France,  496. 

James  the  Elder,  Apostle,  work  of,  in 
Spain,  body  conveyed  to  Compos- 
tclla,  557  ;  ancient  pilgrimages  to 
tomb  of,  558  ;  body  secreted,  559, 
identified  and  proved,  559,  560. 

Japan,  Catholicism  in,  Leo  XIII.  to 
Emperor  of,  405. 

Jesuits  suppressed  by  Clement  XIV., 
restored  by  Pius  VII.,  52;  of  Viter- 
bo,  zeal  of,  53,  college  courses  of, 
66;  eminent  as  theologians.  75,  76; 
dispute  of,  with  University  of  Lou- 


vain,  122  ;  system  of,  adopted  by 
Mgr.  Pecci,  149  ;  St.  Thomas's  meth- 
od enjoined  on,  150  ;  in  Armenia, 
396  ;  in  China,  403  ;  in  Germany, 
460,  suppressed  there,  463,  464  ;  in 
France,  suppressed,  507. 

Joseph  II.  of  Holland,  attempt  of,  at 
unchristian  education,  defeated,  116. 

Journal  des  Debats  on  spoliation  of 
Propaganda,  538.  . 

Journalists,  Congress  of,  in  Rome,  366, 
address  of  Leo  XIII.,  368;  often 
dictate  policy  to  religious  superiors, 
367  ;  those  friendly  to  conciliation 
rebuked,  368. 

Jubilee  proclaimed  by  Leo  XII.,  71. 

Kenrick,  Archbishop  P.  R.,  at  Balti- 
more Council,  450. 

Kirby,  Rev.  Tobias,  reminiscence  by, 
of  Leo  XIII.,  581,  582 

Kiupelian,  Archbishop,  schismatic  pa- 
triarch of  Armenians,  elected,  394  ; 
consecrated,  renounces  his  rank, 
seeks  forgiveness,  395. 

Kostka,  St.  Stanislaus,  holy  memory 
of,  in  Rome,  83 ;  Mgr.  Pecci  re- 
ceives orders  in  chapel  of,  82-86. 

Kulturkampf,  in  Germany,  beginning 
of,  289,  464  ;  Leo  XIII. 's  war  on, 
351;  Bismarck's  name  for,  363;  effect 
of,  on  Christianity,  473,  effect  on  the 
empire,  476  ;  still  active  in  1884, 
479  ;  extinguished,  480. 

Lambiuschini,  Cardinal,  his  friendship 
for  Mgr.  Pecci,  89. 

Laurenzi,  Mgr.  Charles,  consecrated 
coadjutor  to  Cardinal  Pecci,  283  ; 
circular  of,  on  election  of  Leo  XIII., 
314. 

Lawrence,  St.,  note  on.  268. 

Legge, ,  quoted,  297. 

Leibnitz,  Gottfried  W.,  on  Holy  See 
as  mediator,  542. 

Leo  XII.,  vigorous  reign  of,  63,  65  ; 
proclaims  a  Jubilee,  pilgrimages  dur- 
ing.  71;  his  humility,  72. 

Leo  XIII.,  achievements  of  reign  of, 
34,  36.  In  early  life  :  birth  of,  37, 
40;  his  preference  for  name  Joachim. 
43  I  g°es  to  Rome,  52  ;  epigram  by, 
55;  at  Viterbo,  55,  59;  at  the  Collegio 
Romano,  65;  his  proficiency,  66.67; 
chosen  as  defender  of  philosophy, 
68,  forbidden  by  physicians,  69  ;  tri- 
bute to,  by  faculty,  69,  70  ;  selected 
to  present  address  to  Leo  XII.,  72  ; 
cuts  inscription  at  church  of  O.  L. 


INDEX. 


597 


of  Annunciation,  73,  74 ;  chooses 
secular  priesthood,  75,  84;  again  se- 
lected for  public  disputations,  76,  78, 
recorded  in  college  journals,  77  ;  re- 
ceives degree  of  S.T.D.,  lays  aside 
name  Vincent,  78,  79  ;  chooses  ser 
vice  of  Holy  See,  79,  89  ;  wins  prize 
for  best  essay,  79;  receives  degree  of 
D.C.L.,  friendship  of  Cardinal  Sala 
for,  80,  of  Cardinal  Pacca,  81  ;  ap- 
pointed Domestic  Prelate,  leaves 
academy,  81  ;  appointed  Referenda- 
ry to  Segnatura,  81,  to  congregation 
di  Buongoverno,  82 ;  zeal  and  courage 
of,  during  cholera,  receives  subdea- 
conship  and  deaconship,  82,  priest- 
hood, 86. 

Diplomatic  career :  Appointed  Gov- 
ernor of  Benevento,  89;  attacked  by 
typhoid  fever,  91,  recovery,  94;  meas- 
ures of,  against  brigandage,  95,  96  ; 
wise  administration  of  in  Benevento, 
97-99  ;  appointed  Delegate  of  Spo- 
leto,  sent  to  Umbria,  100 ;  improves 
Perugia,  104 ;  institutes  reforms 
through  Umbria,  105;  recalled,  107, 
appointed  Apostolic  Nuncio  at  Brus- 
sels, consecrated  Archbishop  of  Da 
mietia,  108  ;  at  the  court  of  Brussels, 
113;  interest  of,  in  college  of  St. 
Michael,  115;  visits  University  of 
Louvain,  address,  117-119;  influ- 
ence of,  with  King  Leopold,  120; 
affection  of,  for  Belgium,  12 [,  for 
Belgian  College,  allays  disputes 
among  Belgian  Catholics,  122  ;  keeps 
Belgium  from  Ronge  schism,  123  ; 
recalled  from  Brussels,  124 ;  visits 
England.  126,  received  by  thequeen, 
127,  impressions  received  during  the 
visit,  128  ;  visits  France,  her  condi 
tion,  128,  129  ;  arrives  :>t  Rome,  ef- 
fect of  his  visit  to  England  and 
France,  129. 

At  Perugia  :  Made  Bishop  of  Pe- 
rugia, 132,  133  ;  pilgrimage  of,  to 
tomb  of  St.  Francis,  133;  affection 
of,  for  St.  Anne,  enters  Perugia  on 
h-r  feast,  133.  134  ;  his  hard  task. 
136  ;  means  used  for  preserving  his 
flock,  137  ;  his  zeal  for  education, 
establishes  Christian  Doctrine  So- 
cieties, 144;  decrees  fixed  hours  for 
services,  145,  158;  zeal  for  Diocesan 
Seminary,  14^-149,  154.  155  ;  anec- 
dote of,  by  Biunelli,  148  ;  adopt> 
method  of  St.  Thomas,  149,  151  ; 
founds  Academy  of  St.  Thomns,  151, 
157  ;  care  of,  for  seminarians,  153, 


156;  his  method  of  punishment,  154; 
workof.on  "  Humility. "quoted,  154; 
some  pupils  of,  155  ;  his  admirable 
system  of  education,  157;  sanctions 
Conferences  of  St.  Vincent  de  Paul, 
founds  Society  of  St.  Joachim  and 
Pious  Union,  158;  hi.s  private  habits, 
161  ;  relations  of,  with  Piedmont 
government,  161,  162  ;  advice  of,  to 
priests  163-165  ;  pastoral  of,  on 
Clerical  Conscription,  166;  Commis- 
sion of,  to  purchase  freedom  of  cle- 
rics, 167  ;  protest  of,  against  clerical 
conscription,  170-175  ;  quells  riot- 
ing in  Perugia  in  1846,  176  ;  work 
of,  in  famine  of  1854,  177,  180  ;  or- 
ganizes Commission  of  Charity,  pas- 
toral on,  178  ;  work  of,  in  "  Massacre 
of  Perugia,"  180  ;  averts  bloodshed 
in  invasion  of  iSoo,  181  ;  futile  me- 
diation of,  for  a  priest's  life,  182; 
sued  for  admonishing  his  clergy, 
183  ;  efforts  of,  with  government,  in 
behalf  of  religious,  184  ;  zeal  of,  for 
lay  education,  Apostolic  Visitor  to 
university  185  ;  Visitor  to  Collegio 
della  Sapienza,  186  ;  labors  of,  for 
Conservatorio  Pio,  186;  founds  Con- 
servatorio  Graziani,  for  girls,  and 
Magdalen  Asylum,  187  ;  founds  An- 
tinori  Foundling  Asylum,  Domini 
Hospice,  1 88  ;  pastoral  visits  of,  188, 
1 89  ;  works  of,  for  orphans,  189  ; 
restoies  Duomo,  190;  churches  in 
Perugia  built  and  restored  by,  192  ; 
care  of,  for  the  arts,  skill  in  finance, 
193  ;  establishes  Congregation  of 
Holy  Places,  194  ;  character  of  pns- 
.  torals  of.  196,  200  ;  pastorals  of,  on 
Magnetism,  197,  on  Temporal  Do- 
minion, 198  ;  Pope  should  be  inde- 
pendent, 203,  206;  letter  of,  to  Holy 
Father  on  Minghetti's  circular,  209  ; 
joins  with  bishops  in  protest,  219  ; 
letter  of,  to  king  on  civil  marriage, 
224-228  ;  pastoral  of,  on  Current 
Errors,  231-239  ;  protest  of,  against 
abolishing  ecclesiastical  courts  and 
religious  education,  243,  against  sup- 
pression of  monasteries,  245,  248, 
protests  fruitless,  249  ;  manner  of, 
in  dealing  with  authorities,  250 ; 
tried  for  censuring  priests,  251  ;  re- 
monstrance of,  on  roy.il  exequatur, 
253~259  I  Gregory  XVI.'s  intention 
to  preconize,  260  ;  preconized  by 
Pius  IX.,  261 ;  intercedes  for  insur- 
gents of  1848-50,  262  ;  celebration 
of  preconizing  of,  262-265,  his  dis- 


INDEX, 


course,  264  ;  celebration  of  Silver 
Jubilee  of.  266-269,  prayers  recorded 
at,  268  ;  affection  for,  of  the  Peru- 
gians,  262,  265,  267  ;  asked  to  ac- 
cept see  of  Frascati,  judge  in  ec- 
clesiastical causes,  269  ;  member  of 
six  congregations,  habits,  270 ;  Pro- 
tector of  Third  Order,  270,  address 
to  members,  271,  admiration  for 
Order,  275  ;  to  deliver  address  at 
Pius  IX.'s  Jubilee,  279,  the  address, 
280-282  ;  consecrates  Mgr.  Laurenzi 
his  coadjutor,  282  ;  appointed  Ca- 
merlengo,  to  leave  Perugia,  286  ; 
pastorals  of,  on  Catholic  Church  and 
Nineteenth  Century,  287,  on  Church 
and  Civilization  (2),  287-292  ;  at 
death  of  Pius  IX.,  291  ;  orders  body 
of  Pius  IX.  in  state  in  St.  Peter's, 
298. 

As  Pope  :  Prepares  for  conclave, 
300  ;  receives  twenty-three  votes, 
dismayed,  308  ;  receives  thirty-eight 
votes,  3^9,  pleads  his  unfitness,  310  ; 
his  qualities  for  the  office,  310  311 ; 
elected,  accepts,  selects  name.  311  ; 
adoration  to,  312  ;  proclaimed  to 
people,  joy  in  Rome,  313  ;  fir>t 
l>lt-s>ing  of,  to  people,  318  ;  his  coro- 
nation, 319  ;  receives  homage  of  Sa- 
cred College,  319 ;  restores  Scottish 
hierarchy,  320,  321,  410,  bull  on, 
411-415  ;  letter  of,  to  Paris  society 
for  artisans,  321,  to  Belgian  society, 
322  ;  first  allocution  of,  323-326, 
encyclical  Inscrutalili  of,  326-341  ; 
no  compromise  of,  with  Revolution, 
328,  350  ;  on  civilization,  332-334 ; 
on  Papacy,  335  ;  appeal  to  govern- 
ments, 336,  338;  on  family  and  edu- 
cation, 338-341;  interest  of,  in  Ire- 
land, 343  ;  his  eulogy  of  Cardinal 
Franchi,  344  ;  policy  of,  defined, 
345-350,  on  modern  society,  345, 
negotiations  with  Germany,  346, 
3=i,  spoliation  of  Holy  See,  347; 
address  of,  to  Fedcrazione  Piana, 
355,  to  Pontifical  veterans,  356  ;  has 
to  create  schools,  360 ;  receives  Ger- 
man pilgrims,  363  ;  letter  of,  to 
Cork,  364  ;  Spanish  pilgrims  to, 
hardships  of,  364.  365  ;  offerings  to, 
of  pilgrims,  366  ;  address  of,  to  Ca- 
tholic journalists,  368  ;  gives  access 
to  Vatican  Library,  creates  council 
of  cardinals,  370;  letter  of,  to  Ger- 
man Catholics,  371  ;  encyclicil  of, 
bn  Socialism,  372-378  ;  institutes 
Council  of  Education,  379  ;  nego- 


tiations of,  with  Russia  384,  385  ; 
regard  of,  for  public  opinion,  386  ; 
encyclical  of,  on  Sts.  Cyril  and  Me- 
thodius, 387  ;  gives  hierarchy  to 
Slavs,  389  ;  improves  Greek  College, 
390  ;  success  of,  in  healing  schisms 
in  Turkey,  392-396  ;  founds  Arme- 
nian College,  396  ;  sends  Cross  of 
Order  of  Pius  IX.  to  Persian  princes, 
400  ;  letter  of,  to  Chinese  emperor 
402,  to  Emperor  of  Japan,  405,  to 
Shoa  Gallas,  406 ;  bull,  Ex  Su- 
premo Apostolatus  A  pice,  issued, 
410  ;  constitution,  Romanes  Pon- 
tijtces,  on  English  Religious  Orders, 
417  ;  his  grasp  of  Irish  question, 
423  ;  letter  of,  to  Irish  bishops,  428  ; 
on  Irish  secret  societies,  429,  432  ; 
allocution  of,  on  outrages  at  Pius 
IX.'s  funeral,  436  ;  why  a  Prisoner 
in  the  Vatican,  438,  439 ;  bull  of. 
convening  Thiid  Plenary  Council  of 
Baltimore,  441,  tribute  to,  of  fathers 
of  council.  456  ;  letter  of,  on  U.  S. 
Catholic  University,  458  ;  inteiest 
of.  in  German  persecutions,  .465  ; 
skill  of,  in  negotiations  with  Ger- 
many 473,  474  ;  letter  of,  to  Arch- 
bishop of  Cologne,  475  ;  triumphs 
over  Kulturkampf,  480  ;  work  of,  in 
education  in  Rome,  481,  491-494  ; 
on  Christian  philosophy,  482-491  ; 
on  science  and  Socialism,  483  ;  on 
St.  Thomas's  philosophy,  485,  488, 
490 ;  letter  of,  to  French  bishops, 
505-507  ;  sanctions  declaration  of 
French  Religious  Orders,  508,  oppo- 
sition to,  509,  blamed  for,  511  ;  at 
Urban  College,  523  ;  on  seizure  of 
Propaganda  property,  528-533, state- 
ment on,  sent  to  foreign  govern- 
ments, 533-537  ;  asked  to  arbitrate 
in  Carolinas  affair,  548,  allocution 
on,  552-5.54,  f?4-58?:  restores  pil- 
grimage to  Compostella,  556,  560  ; 
as  godfather  to  Alfonso  XIII.  of 
Spain,  560,  561  ;  Prisoner  of  the 
Vatican,  562,  563  ;  arduous  duties 
°ff  5°5.  571-574  I  his  simple  habits, 
566,  575  ;  his  impressive-ness  at  the 
altar,  566,  567  ;  celebrating  V 
568,  569;  giving  Communion,  5^9; 
manner  of,  at  audiences.  570,  571, 
574  ;  his  breakfast,  571  ;  attention 
of,  to  details,  572,  573 ;  ordinary 
meals  of,  575  ;  his  labors  duiing  the 
night.  575.  57& ;  reminiscence  of, 
by  Dr.  Kirby,  581,  582. 
Leopold  I.  of  Belgium,  character  of, 


INDEX. 


599 


in  ;  against  denominational  schools, 

112  ;  his  opinion  of  Mgr.  Pecci,  120, 

decorates  him,  recommends  him  to 

Pope,  1 26  ;  requests  Pope  to  precon- 

ize  Mgr  Pecci,  129. 
Liberalism  in  Belgium,  119 
Lichtenstein,  Prince  von,  advances  to 

succor  Perugia,  176  ;  induced  to  not 

enter  city,  177. 
Loftus,    Lord   Augustus,   on   Catholic 

persecution  in  Russia,  382. 
Louisa  Maria  of  Belgium,  devotion  of, 

to   Christian    education,    113,    114; 

veneration  of,  for  Mgr.   Pecci,  120, 

121. 
Louvain,  University  of,  restored,  117  ; 

dispute  of,  with  the  Jesuits,  122. 

Magnetism — see  Spiritualism. 

Maistre,  Count  de,  quoted,  203. 

Mancini,  Signer,  untruthful  account 
by,  of  outrages  at  Pius  IX. !s  fune- 
ral, 439- 

Manera,  Professor,  establishes  aca- 
demy at  Gregorian  University,  78. 

Mansfield,  Colonel,  quoted,  381-383. 

Marches,  The,  bishops  of,  remonstrate 
with  Piedmtmtese  governor,  217  ; 
sinful  excesses  permitted  in  cities  of, 
218. 

Marie  Clotilde,  Queen,  driven  from 
Italy,  85  ;  death  of,  86. 

Marriage,  civil,  imposed  on  Umbria, 
183,  result,  224,  227;  Mgr.  Pecci's 
letter  on,  to  king,  224-228;  "  De- 
claration "of  bishops  on,  225,  their 
Remonstrance,  228  ;  Leo  XIII.  on 
Christian,  340. 

Maryland,  U.  S.,  religion  in  early, 
birth  of  U.S.  hierarchy,  447. 

May  Laws,  in  Germany,  passed,  464  ; 
working  of,  464,  465,  467,  468,  472  ; 
cancelled,  480. 

Mazzini,  Giuseppe,  part  of,  in  Italian 
Revolution,  102  ;  desirous  of  pos- 
sessing Rome,  163  ;  on  temporal 
power  of  Pope,  206  ;  clubs  of,  over- 
run Italy  in  1848-60,  216. 

M  erode,  Count  Felix  de,  121. 

Methodius,  St.,  Apostle  to  the  Slavs, 
386;  Leo  XI II.  's  Encyclical  on,  387; 
death  of,  389. 

Miglietti,  Signor,  letter  of,  to  Italian 
bishops  and  clergy,  209. 

Missionaries,  French  :  Jogues,  Goupil, 
Lallemand,  Brebeuf,  Rasles,  Cham- 
plain,  La  Salle.  Marquette,  Cheve- 
rus,  Dubois.  Brute,  Marechal,  Flaget, 
Dubourg,  Odin,  Marie  de  1'Incarna- 


tion,    Marguerite    Bourgeoys,    497, 

499,  500. 
Missionary  Herald,  letter  to,   against 

Catholicism  in  Japan,  4015. 
Monaco    la   Valletta,    Cardinal,    358 ; 

efforts  of,  /or   religious   education, 

360,  481. 
Monte  di  Pieta  revived  by  Mgr.  Pecci, 

1 88. 
Monti  Frumentari  established  by  Mgr 

Pecci,  177,  1 80. 
Montpellier,  Canon  (Bishop  of  Liege), 

108. 

Mormonism,  note  on,  421. 
Murphy,  Count,  quoted,  203,  473,  539, 

557- 

Nai'b  Sultaneh,  of  Persia,  tolerates  Ca- 
tholics, 399  ;  decorated  with  Grand 
Cross  by  Leo  XIII.,  400. 

Napoleon  I.,  wars  of,  46  ;  hostility  of, 
to  Church,  49  ;  seizes  Church  pro- 
perty, 49,  51  ;  attempts  removal  of 
Holy  See,  46,  64  ;  restores  Christian 
worship  in  France,  496. 

Napoleon  III.,  designs  of,  in  Italian 
campaign,  196  ;  withdrawal  of,  from 
Italy,  197  ;  fall  of,  198  ;  treachery 
of,  to  Holy  See,  216. 

Nasr-ed-Din,  Shah,  character  of,  398  ; 
attitude  of,  to  Christians,  399. 

Newman,  Cardinal  J.  H.,  on  renegade 
priests,  240. 

Nina,  Cardinal  Lorenzo,  as  Secretary 
of  State,  344  ;  Leo  XIII.  outlines 
his  policy  to,  345-350. 

Notre  Dame,  church  of  (Paris),  Com- 
munion at,  520.  „ 

Occult  Force,  in  Belgium,  no,  III  ; 
in  Italy,  130  ;  plan  of,  for  destroying 
Italian  Church,  322  ;  in  Germany, 
371-  37°;  in  spoliation  of  Propa- 
ganda, 535. 

Odescalchi,    Cardinal,    confers    orders 
on  Joachim  Pecci,  82,  84,  86  ;  leaves 
the  cardinalate  to  become  a  novice 
84. 

Old  Catholics  of  Germany,  church  of, 
463  ;  demand  legal  recognition,  469  ; 
sympathy  of  Church  of  England 
with,  469. 

Olivaint,  Father,  society  of,  for  arti- 
sans, 321,  322. 

Orders,  Religious,  in  Italy,  property 
seized  by  Napoleon  I.,  49,  56, 
struggles  of,  56,  57,  zeal  and  learn- 
ing of,  76,  suppressed,  166  ;  Mon- 
astic, in  Umbria,  suppressed,  244, 


6OO 


INDEX. 


value  of,  246,  348,  hardships  of 
members  of.  at  suppression,  251,  as- 
sisted by  Pope,  170.  252  ;  effects  of 
suppression  of.  in  Rome,  356  ;  di»- 
putes  of,  with  English  bishops,  416, 
417,  settled,  417-400;  suppression 
of,  in  Germany,  464  ;*in  France,  498, 

507,  their  suppression,  504-510,  515  ; 
relation  of,  to  Church,  505  ;  civiliza- 
tion indebted  to  them,  506  ;  aid  of, 
to   the   suffering,    507  ;   objects   of, 

508,  509. 

O'Reilly,  Rev.  Bernard,  works  of, 
quoted,  91,  279,  285,  290,  295,  300. 

Osouf,  Mgr..  of  Japan,  at  Baltimore 
Council,  450. 

Ourousoff,  Prince,  insulting  action  of, 
to  Holy  See,  384. 

Pacca,  Cardinal,  recommends  Joachim 
Pecci  to  the  Pope,  81. 

Paix,  College  de  la  (Namur),  trouble 
from  faculties  to,  122. 

Papacy — see  Holy  See. 

Parocchi,  Cardinal,  work  of,  for  edu- 
cation in  Rome,  360,  481,492,  493; 
weekly  report  of,  573. 

Pastoral  Letters  of  Mgr.  Pecci :  on 
Clerical  Conscription,  166 ;  on  Mag- 
netism, 197;  on  Temporal  Do- 
minion, 198 ;  on  Current  Errors, 
231  ;  on  Catholic  Church  and  Nine- 
teenth Century,  287  ;  on  Church 
and  Civilization  (2),  287-292. 

Patrizi,  Professor,  learning  of,  76. 

Pecci.  the,  residence  of,  38 ;  names 
and  ages  of,  40  ;  history  of,  41,  42  ; 
Count  and  Countess,  character  of, 
42,  45.  Countess,  as  member  of 
Third  Order,  58  ;  her  death,  59-62. 
Count,  death  of,  99. 

Pecci,  Mgr. — see  Leo  XIII. 

Perrone,  Prof.  G.,  learning  of,  76; 
founds  academy  at  Gregorian  Uni- 
versity, 78. 

Persia,  Christians  protected  in,  399  ; 
princes  of,  decorated  by  Leo  XI I L, 
.401  ;  future  of,  402. 

Perugia,  Italy,  de-.cription  of,  results 
of  mediaeval  guilds  in,  100,  101 ; 
revolutionary  teachings  in,  103 ; 
Strada  Gregoriana  in,  built  by  Mgr. 
Pecci.  104  ;  reforms  in,  by  Mgr. 
Pecci.  106 ;  a  centre  of  revolution- 
ary activity,  125  ;  popular  enthu- 
siasm at  Mgr.  Pecci's  entry  into, 
134  ;  rioting  and  ravages  in,  in  1846, 
1849.  '76  '.  "  Massacre  "  of,  in  1859, 
1 80,  181  ;  insurrection  in,  in  1860, 


181  ;  filled  with  exiles,  182,  disor- 
ders caused  by,  183  ;  institutions  in, 
founded  by  Mgr.  Pecci,  186-189  '< 
Duomo  of,  restored,  190  ;  church  of 
O.  L.  of  Mercy  in,  restored  by  Mgr. 
Pecci,  192  ;  citizens  of,  espoused 
cause  of  Gregory  II.,  207;  a  refuge 
for  Popes,  conclaves  held  in,  21  8  ; 
letter  of  bishops  of,  to  Pius  IX., 
2<  9 ;  monasteries  of,  desecrated, 
244  ;  celebrates  Mgr.  Pecci's  eleva- 
tion to  cardinalate,  262-265,  in- 
scription on  cathedral,  263 ;  cele- 
brates Cardinal  Pecci's  Silver  Jubi- 
lee, 266-269 ;  joy  in,  at  election  of 
Leo  XIII.,  314,  315. 
Peter  and  Paul,  Sts.,  centenary,  in 

Rome,  of  martyrdom  of,  162. 
Philosophy,  Christian,  482  ;  results  of 
false,  482-484  ;  of  St.  Thomas,  pre- 
scribed by  Leo  XIII.,  485,  encycli- 
cal on,  485-492. 
Pianciani,     Professor    J.     B ,    in    the 

United  States.  68. 

Piedmont,  authorities  of,  and  Mgr. 
Pecci,  161,  162  ;  attempt  of,  to 
force  clergy  to  renounce  Pius  IX., 
209-212  ;  invasion  of  Papal  States 
by,  encouraged  by  England  and 
France.  216  ;  ecclesiastical  courts 
abolished  in.  241. 
Pious  Union  of  St.  Joachim  established, 

169. 

Pius  VII.  ill-treated  by  Napoleon  I., 
46  ;  condition  of  Rome  at  return  of, 
50 ;  restores  Jesuits,  52  ;  death  of, 
63  ;  induces  Napoleon  to  restore 
Christian  worship  in  France,  496. 
Pius  VIII.  elected.  81. 
Pius  IX.,  brilliant  opening  of  reign 
of.  316,  317,  its  dark  close,  33.  34  ; 
opinion  of,  of  Mgr.  Pecci,  130,  131  ; 
reply  of,  to  King  Leopold,  131  ;  re- 
sults of  Act  of  Amnesty  of,  131, 
136  ;  on  civil  marriage,  226  ;  preco- 
nizes  Mgr.  Pecci,  261  ;  esteem  of. 
for  Cardinal  Pecci,  267,  appoints 
him  Protector  of  Third  Order,  270  ; 
Episcopal  Jubilee  of,  277-283  ;  de- 
nounces Clerical  Abuses  Bill,  278  ; 
protests  of  revolutionists  at  Jubilee 
of,  283  ;  affection  of,  for  Cardinal 
de  Angelis,  285  ;  proclaims  Cardi- 
nal Pecci  Camerlengo,  286  ;  failing, 
286  ;  last  days  of,  290,  291  ;  last 
protest  of,  295  ;  "excommunicated" 
by  populace  in  1849,  297  ;  death  of, 
lying  in  state,  298  ;  zeal  of,  for 
clergy,  356  ;  efforts  of,  far  Church 


INDEX. 


60 1 


in  Russia,  383  ;  restores  English 
hierarchy,  408  ;  petitioned  to  re- 
store Scottish  hierarchy,  413  ;  re- 
moval of  body  of,  from  St.  Peter's, 
436,  outrages  at,  437,  438  ;  refuses 
to  receive  German  ambassador,  al- 
locution on  persecutions  in  Ger- 
many. 468  ;  wish  of,  for  avoidance 
of  war  in  United  States,  555.  - 

Poland,  unhappy  lot  of,  479 ;  proper 
treatment  for,  480. 

Pontifical  Institute,  Rome,  494. 

Pope,  treated  as  usurper  by  Napoleon  • 
1.,  49 ;  exposition  of  office  of,  201— 
206  ;  custom  on  death  of  a,  298,  fu- 
neral services  at,  299. 

Portiuncula,    sanctuary  of,    at  Assisi, 

133- 

Power,  Temporal  —  see  Dominion, 
Temporal. 

Priests,  education  of,  in  Perugia,  145- 
155,  system  followed,  157,  158, 
supervision  over,  by  Mgr.  Pecci, 
160,  161,  his  instructions  to,  162- 
165  ;  position  of,  in  Papal  States, 
163 ;  conscription  of,  in  Italy.  166, 
348;  fund  for  freedom  of,  158,  167, 

168  ;  destitution  of,  in    1869,    168  ; 
"  Pious    Union"    for    needy.    158, 

169  ;  protest  of  Mgr.  Pecci  against 
conscription    of,     170-175  ;    mainly 
from  poor  families,    173  ;  value  of, 
in   a  nation,  174  ;   treatment  of,  in 
1860,   183;    attempts   made   on,    to 
renounce  Pius  IX.,  209-212  ;  com- 
pelled   to   sanctify    civil    marriage, 
227  ;    renegade,    in    1846-86,    240, 
how  received  by  non-Catholics,  their 
aims,    241  ;    of    Umbria,    effect   of 
suppression  of  monasteries  on,  245  ; 
worthy,  kept    from    their    charges, 
pensions   to   suspended,    258,    259; 
Clerical     Abuses     Bill,     punishing 
priests,    passed,    277,    granting    to 
civil  courts  to  decide,  278  ;  effect  on, 
of   dispersion  of   Religious   Orders, 
356  ;  Irish,  influence  of,  with  peo- 
ple,   426,    427  ;    in    United    States. 
452,  457  ;  in  Germany,  how  affected 
by  May  Laws,  464-480 ;  of  Rome, 
education  of,  491-494  ;  hardships  of, 
in  France,  513-518. 

Propaganda,  ecclesiastical  colleges  of, 
in  Rome,  522,  524  ;  praised  by  Pro- 
testants, 524  ;  value  of,  525  ;  prop- 
erty of,  in  Italy,  seized,  526,  527, 
appeals  to  courts,  527.  528  ;  Leo 
XIII.  on,  528-537;  object  of, 
world  indebted  to,  529  ;  its  revenues 


diminished,  531,  538;  belongs  to 
entire  Catholic  world,  its  character, 
5  4  ;  government's  reasoning  on 
•  spoliation  of,  535  ;  finances  of,  in 
danger,  how  expended,  536 ;  ap- 
peal (or,  to  foreign  governments, 
537  ;  sections  of.  571. 
Protestants,  interests  of,  defended  by 
Leo  XIII.,  329  ;  not  feared  by  the 
revolutionists,  331. 

Quattro  Fontane,  Rome.  123. 
Quirinal  Palace,  former  conclaves  held 

in,  300  ;  conclave  of  1678  debarred 

from,  301. 
Quod  Apostolici  mttneris,   encyclical, 

372. 
Quod  Divina  Sapientnr,  bull,  76. 

Rei  Catholictz  incrementtim,  bull,  441. 

Religion — see  Catholic  Church. 

Retreat,  spiritual,  object  of,  when  in- 
troduced, 153 

Revolution,  French,  of  1789,  495,  499; 
of  1878,  495-497- 

Revolutionists,  the,  in  Ilaly  in  1846, 
their  opposition  to  religion,  135, 
136;  power  of,  143;  work  of,  in 
1846-78,  195,  209-212 ;  cannot  be 
conciliated,  250;  might,  not  right, 
their  watchword,  253  ;  hatred  of,  for 
St.  Francis  Assisi,  272 ;  protest 
against  Golden  Jubilee  of  Pius  IX., 
283  ;  desire  extinction  of  religion, 
296  ;  plan  of,  for  reconciliation  ex- 
posed by  Pius  IX.,  327,  denounced 
by  Leo  XIII.,  328  ;  their  warfare 
directed  against  Christianity,  329  ; 
press  of,  on  mediation  of  Holy  See, 

556 

Riario-Sforza,  Cardinal,  character  of, 
80  ;  labors  of,  death,  284. 

Riforma,  Rome,  plan  of,  for  destroy- 
ing Church,  441. 

Roma nos  Pan tijSets ,  constitution,  417. 

Rome,  the  centre  of  Catholicity,  63, 
64;  action  of  anti-clerical  clubs  in, 
on  Pius  IX. "s  Jubilee,  279  ;  rabble 
in,  "excommunicate"  Pius IX.,  297  ; 
services  in.  at  death  of  a  Pope,  299  ; 
joy  in,  at  election  of  Leo  XIII.,  313, 
at  his  coronation.  320;  scenes  in,  at 
election  of  Pius  IX.,  31(1,  317  ;  peo- 
ple of,  receive  Leo  XIII. 's  blessing, 
317,  318;  riotous  acts  in,  at  Leo 
XIII. 's  coronation,  320  ;  centenary 
of  Voltaire  celebrated  at,  353,  pious 
reparations  for,  354,  355  ;  plan  for 
renovating,  362,  no  provision  for 


6O2 


1XDEX. 


Catholic  worship,  3^3  ;  pilgrimages 
to,  in  1878.  363-366  ;  Congress  of 
Catholic  journalists  in,  366—368  ; 
Greek  College  in,  founded,  389, 
improved  by  Leo  XIII.,  390;  Ar- 
menian College  in,  founded,  396  ; 
outrages  in,  at  Pius  IX. 's  funeral, 
436-439  ;  occupation  of,  denounced 
by  German  Catholics,  471  ;  promo 
tion  of  education  in,  by  Leo  XIII., 
481  ;  ecclesiastical  colleges  in,  524; 
crowds  in,  during  pilgrimages,  574, 
575  ;  universities  of,  579-581. 

Ronge  heresy,  kept  from  Belgium  by 
Mgr.  Pecci,  123. 

Rosi,  College,  of  Spello,  improved  by 
M^r.  Pecci,  107. 

Rotelli,  Mgr.,  153. 

Russia,  ill-treatment  of  Catholks  in, 
3So,  383  ;  visit  of  Czar  Nicholas 
of,  to  Gregory  XVI  ,  383  ;  insulting 
action  of  charge  d'affaires  of,  384. 

Saint   Michael,  College  of  (Brussels), 

114-  US- 

Sala,  Cardinal,  friendship  of,  to  Jo- 
achim Pecci,  80,  89  ;  superintends 
cholera  hospitals,  82. 

Salvatorelli,  Archdeacon,  155. 

Santi,  Dr.  Baldassare  (priest),  con- 
demned to  death  by  court-martial, 
182. 

Sapienza,  University  of,  origin  of  name, 
improved  by  Leo  XII.,  76  ;  reor- 
ganized by  Mgr.  Pecci,  186 ;  stu- 
dents of,  visit  Leo  XIII.,  357;  his- 
tory of,  570.  580  ;  studies  at,  580. 

Satolli,  Professors,  155. 

Savings-Bank,  Perugia,  established  by 
Mgr.  Pecci,  106. 

"  Scelta  di  Atti  Episcopal!  "  quoted, 
165,  166,  168,  175,  180,  222,  228, 
230,  239,  246,  249. 

Scepticism — see  Irreligion. 

Schools,  public  and  denominational, 
112  ;  education  in  denominational, 
114;  Belgian  clergy  in  intermedi- 
ate, 122  ;  catechism  in  Catholic, 
prohibited  in  Italy,  358  ;  in  Rome, 
481,  491-494  ;  in  France,  501,  502. 

Scotland,  hierarchy  restored  to,  320, 
321,  326,  410,  bull  on,  411-415  ;  re- 
vival of  Church  in,  409  ;  Catholi- 
ci»m  in,  in  middle  ages.  412;  pres- 
ent condition  of  Church  in,  415,416. 

Secchi,  Professor  A.,  in  United  States, 
his  eminence,  68. 

Seminaries,  the  discipline  needed  in, 
152. 


Seminarii  Romano  and  Pio — see  Col- 
legii  Romano  and  Pic, 

Seminary,  Diocesan  (Perugia),  care  of 
Mgr.  Pecci  for,  145,  146,  154,  155- 
157  ;  issues  Programme  of  Studies, 

155- 

Siccardi  Laws,  in  Piedmont,  working 
of,  241. 

Sigonio,  ,  quoted,  208. 

Sistine  Chapel,  not  used  for  lying  in 
state  of  Pius  IX.,  298  ;  conclave  of 
1878  held  in,  303. 

Slavs,  apostles  of,  386  ;  zeal  of  Leo 
XIII  for,  387  ;  pilgrimages  of,  to 
Leo  XIII.,  387.  388  ;  hieraichy  for, 
established,  388  ;  debt  of,  to  Sts. 
Cyril  and  Methodius,  389. 

Socialise,  doctrines  and  history  of, 
373.  374.  377  ',  force  of,  in  France, 
375,  510,  in  Germany,  375,  376; 
fruits  of,  377  ;  errors  of,  378  ;  Leo 
XIII.  on,  483. 

Societies,  secret,  in  Italy  in  1841,  102, 
103  ;  repressed  in  Umbria,  105  ;  in 
Belgium,  no,  115,  119;  in  Italy  in 
1846,  136,  143  ;  in  Papal  States, 
250  ;  in  Ireland,  424,  426,  429, 
432  ;  in  France,  503. 

Society,  Christian,  warfare  of  Revolu- 
tion against,  329  ;  evil  state  of,  in 
1878,  330,  cause,  330,  331  ;  mediaeval 
and  modern,  compared,  333  ;  labors 
of  Holy  See  for,  334  ;  domestic, 
nursery  of  Christian  virtues,  338  ; 
cause  of  modern  dangers  of,  345  ; 
domestic,  destroyed  by  Socialism, 
3/8. 

Spain,  ambassador  of,  offers  homage 
to  Leo  XIII.,  316  ;  senate  of,  adopts 
resolution  of  homage,  319;  pilgrims 
from,  to  Leo  XIII.,  quarantined  by 
Italian  government,  364.  365;  title 
of,  to  Carolinas  Islands,  543,  5  14  ; 
excitement  in,  at  occupancy  of  Caro- 
linas, 546,  547  ;  cabinet  of,  protest 
to  Powers,  German  flug  insulted, 
547  ;  asks  Holy  See  to  arbitrate, 
548,  result,  548,  551-554,  584-5S7  ; 
relations  of,  with  Holy  See.  549 ; 
exercises  right  of  veto  in  conclave, 

583.  584- 

Spiritualism,  character  of,  on  Conti- 
nent, 197. 

States  of  the  Church,  absorbed  by 
Italy,  33  ;  position  of  clergy  of,  in 
1866,  163  ;  violated  by  France  and 
It.ily,  197  ;  the  school  of  sciences 
and  arts,  201  ;  war  against,  en- 
couraged by  England-  and  France, 


INDEX. 


603 


216  ;  swarms  with  secret  societies, 
250;  part  taken  by,  in  Pius  IX. 's 
Jubilee,  279,  280 ;  usurpation  of, 
not  sanctioned  by  Powers,  439. 

Stockmar,  Baron  von,  solicits  Mgr. 
Pecci  to  visit  London,  126. 

Syria — see  Turkey. 

Talleyrand,  Prince,  share  of,  in  rob- 
bery of  Papal  States,  90. 

Times,  London,  quoted,  470  ;  on  spo- 
liation of  Propaganda,  537. 

Tertullian  quoted,  418. 

Tessandori,  Father,  holy  life  of.  93  ; 
aid  of,  in  recovery  of  Mgr.  Pecci, 
94. 

Turkey,  loyalty  of  Catholics  in,  392  ; 
acknowledges  benefit  of  Church, 
schism  in  Mesopotamia  healed,  393  ; 
feud  in  Syria  terminated,  393,  394  ; 
Armenian  schism  healed,  394-390, 
Armenian  College  founded  in  Rome, 

396  ;   colonies  of   regulars  in,  396, 

397  ;    proposed    Catholic   school   at 
Constantinople,  458,  459. 

Umbrin,  Italy,  reformed  by  Mgr. 
Pecci,  105,  ic6  ;  civil  marriage  im- 
posed on,  183,  the  result,  224  ;  acts 
of  hierarchy  of,  184 ;  bishops  of, 
protest  against  government  decrees, 
219-222  ;  "  Declaration  "  of  bishops 
of  on  civil  marriage,  225  ;  ecclesias- 
tical courts  in,  abolished,  Church 
deprived  of  control  of  education, 
242  ;  Monastic  Orders  in,  suppress 
ed,  244 ;  commissary  of,  disregards 
restrictions  of  king,  245. 

Unbelief — see  Irreligion. 

Union  of  Preachers  founded  by  Mgr. 
Pecci.  145. 

United  States,  Congress  of,  suppresses 
legation  at  Vatican,  34  ;  school  sys- 
tem in,  112,  and  in  Belgium  com- 
pared, 119  ;  joy  of  non-Catholics  in, 
at  seizure  of  Rome,  297  ;  satisfac- 
tion in,  at  election  of  Leo  XIII., 
313  ;  religious  spirit  in,  421  ;  Catho- 
lics in,  421,  422  ;  Leo  XIII.  convenes 
Third  Plenary  Council  of.  441  ;  early 
troubles  of.  442  ;  a  religious  people, 
442,  and  conservative,  444  ;  condi- 
tion of.  after  Revolution,  445  ;  fore- 
sight of  people  of,  446  ;  and  France 
compared,  446 ;  Catholicism  in, 
447,  448  ;  foreign  element  in,  448  ; 
growth  of  Church  in.  452  ;  irreligion 
in,  453  ;  Church  and  institutions  of, 
455  I  Catholic  University  for,  start- 


ed, 457,  Leo  XIII.  on.  458  ;  work 
of  French  priests  in,  500  ;  civil  war 
in,  could  have  been  averted,  554, 
555  ;  ambassador  to  Holy  See  pro- 
bable, 556. 

Univer.-ity  of  Perugia  reorganized  by 
Mgr.  Pecci,  185. 

Urban  College,  Rome,  mission  of, 
annual  academy  held  in,  522,  cere- 
monies at,  nationalities  represented, 
523  ;  country-house  of,  sequestrat 
ed,  526. 

Vanucci,  Pietro  (Perugino),  works  of, 
in  Perugia,  101. 

Vatican,  access  given  to  Library  of, 
370  ;  palace  of,  563,  565  ;  in  times 
of  pilgrimage,  574. 

Vico,  Professor  A.  di,  death  of,  68. 

Vienna,  Congress  of,  its  treatment  of 
Belgians,  109. 

Virgin  of  Graces,  church  of,  in  Bene- 
vento,  93 ;  Mgr.  Pecci  lays  corner- 
stone for  new  chunh,  94,  95. 

Viterbo     College,    Vincent   Pecci   at, 

52-55.  58,  59-  65,  70. 
Voltaire,  doctrines  of  in  Italy,  47,  50, 
101,  102  ;  hatred  of  followers  of,  for 
St.  Francis,  272  ;  centenary  of,  at 
Rome,  353,  blasphemous  sessions 
°f»  354 !  doctrines  of,  in  France, 
497  ;  on  Holy  See  as  mediator,  540. 

Walsh,  Archbishop  William,  elected  to 
see  of  Dublin,  433  ;  unites  cleigy  and 
people,  434. 

Weishaupt,  Adam,  doctrines  of,  in 
Belgium,  no. 

William  I.  of  Germany,  present  of,  to 
Pius  IX.,  461  ;  says  Catholics  must 
obey  laws,  467  ;  ambassador  of,  not 
received  by  Pius  IX.,  468  ;  visits 
Victor  Emmanuel,  470 ;  changed 
views  of,  regarding  Catholics,  550. 

William  of  Orange,  Belgians  resist 
educational  system  of,  116. 

Windthorst,  I.udwig  von,  Catholic 
leader  in  Germany,  466  ;  bill  of,  foi 
relieving  priests,  477. 

Wiseman,  Cardinal  Nicholas,  estimate 
of.  127  ;  his  opinion  of  Gregory 
XVI.,  130;  quoted,  383. 

Xavier,  St.  Francis,  catechism  classes 
of,  in  East,  142. 

Zel-el-Sultan,  of  Persia,  character  of. 
friendly  to  Catholics,  399  ;  decorated 
by  Leo  XIII. ,400, 


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